


Love Love Nightmare

by gyuuniku



Series: Two of a Kind (aka self-indulgent pregame SaiOuma smut series) [5]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Asphyxiation, Attempted Kidnapping, Biting, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, Bondage, Breathplay, Choking, Cosplay, Crossdressing, Exhibitionism, Frottage, I guess???? idk what else to tag it as Ouma is a crackhead, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Knifeplay, Love Confessions, M/M, Masochism, Meeting the Parents, Non-Consensual Blood Drinking, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Obsessive Behavior, Painplay, Photography, Possessive Behavior, Power Bottom, Power Exchange, Pre-Game Momota Kaito, Pre-Game Oma Kokichi, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Pre-Game Saihara Shuichi, Rough Sex, Sadism, Scent Kink, Shoplifting, Stalking, Voyeurism, mmmmm MomoSai is not focused on/sexual in this chapter so keep that in mind!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 19:34:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18857689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyuuniku/pseuds/gyuuniku
Summary: Ouma refuses to lose, in all aspects of his life, but especially when it comes to Saihara.Which explains why he ends up sitting next to his mother, wearing a raunchy Enoshima Junko cosplay underneath his uniform.-“It’s not your fault, I know it isn’t your fault,” Ouma shook his head, the knife in his hands trembling with the unsteady grip. The pinned boy couldn’t stop watching the knife, the way it shook and gleamed, casting an odd shadow over his own body he could just make out. Just barely, but he felt his heart leap.“You can’t help it that other things catch your attention, it makes sense, right? Other things are fun, other people… They’re better than me. No matter how much I change I can’t be as good as everything else,” Ouma inhaled brokenly, his lower lip sucking between his teeth as he spoke, “So I’m not mad at you, I promise. I’m mad at everyone else.So, I’ll kill everyone else, and I’ll destroy everything you don’t need to be happy.”





	Love Love Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> !!Please check tags before reading!!

_This work is part of a series, you can read[here!](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1005960)_

 

_いつか夢で見たのよ_

_Once, I saw in a dream_

  
_世界中が沈んで_

_That the whole world had sunken away_

  
_私とあなたの二人きり_

_Me and you, just the two of us_

  
_ぶっとんだ　シチュエーション_

_We leapt straight into this situation_

* * *

 

 _Good morning Saihara-kun!_ _☼_ _I hope you’re enjoying your day off._

_I know it’s a little early, so feel free to respond whenever, but did you want to hang out today…?_

_We don’t have to do anything special. But we also could… If you wanted to!_

Ouma rubbed his fingers over his screen in nervous repetition after he sent the messages, ones he had furiously spellchecked in every way possible despite knowing he made no mistakes when typing them. The glass on the particularly shattered portion near the bottom of his phone was breaking off and lodging itself into his fingers, but not in a painful way. Just a tickling collection of particles that were more dangerous than their sparkling facets made them seem.

It was the crinkling of the glass in his skin, and the reminder of the destruction of his phone after he had dropped it outside of Momota’s house in his distressed flurry, that turned his innocent jitters into a cold rock in his chest.

He knew it was too early for it, but he wished Saihara would respond right away. It was one of their precious days off, and most students were rarely up at this hour when they were given the option to rest for once. But Ouma was never permitted to sleep in, the futons needed washing, there was too much homework piling up as he had begun to ignore it over the time he spent observing Saihara, and if he had even tried… He would have been dragged out of bed before he had the chance to understand the concept of lazy.

 _‘Well, if he’s sleeping peacefully…’_ Ouma told himself, only half-believing it, about to set his phone down when it unexpectedly went off, causing him to jump.

_Morning, Ouma-kun._

He was awake already? Considering the day they just had earlier in the week, he assumed Saihara would be sleeping enough to recover from the physical and emotional shattering he had experienced. That was what Ouma wanted to do, sleep until he could mix the existence of dreams and reality into an indivisible mush, until he could pretend it had never happened.

But even if he could, despite his responsibilities and the world that restrained him, his dreams offered no solace. He was a vivid dreamer, but not an often one, creating an uneasy scenario upon which each time he closed his eyes, he was met with blackness or everything. And everything was usually a nightmare, something grotesque that managed to surpass the dismal sludge he trudged through every day. What could be more terrifying than being a worthless, disappointing, insignificant mess?

Monsters, monsters were more terrifying.  At this point, Ouma wasn’t particularly frightened of human beings to his core, in the way he had been as a child. He still flinched, and cried, and writhed in pain, he felt that fleeting shock that shook him to the point he became useless. But it never echoed in his head or tormented him later when he thought on it again. When you experienced something enough, whether it be positive or negative, you became numb to it, and the depths of humans’ cruelty just weren’t enough to be his nightmare anymore.

So they shifted, they became something new and unfamiliar in shape, something Ouma could never see when walking down the street. They weren’t a towering bully or a snickering girl, they were an amalgamate of dark tentacles that tore him limb from limb. They weren’t his father on a drunk night, they were a hideous blanket covered in hundreds of eyes that smothered him in a putrid smell.

The worst dreams were the black ones, the darkness the loomed behind him without any beginning or end. Ouma was never aware of where he was or how he arrived there when those nightmares started, but when he sensed the rising pressure behind him, one full of malice despite being shapeless, he knew he had to start running. It was painful to run for so far and for so long, to sweat for hours until the day changed as he desperately tried to escape an enemy he could never turn to face. His neck was frozen in place, rigidly refusing to twist any way and keeping his gaze forward, his muscles having decided themselves whatever was behind him was mind-meltingly bloodcurdling to the point he couldn’t handle seeing it.

There was no exit, not one he had ever managed to reach at least, but if he gave up or slacked even a bit the darkness began to curl up around his sides and into his vision with a biting chill. Its pitch tendrils reached for him, pawed at him, pulled him back into its ghastly form until his heart was pounding viciously in fear. What was it he was even scared of, then? If he couldn’t see it, and he didn’t know what it was, why did he have such a vivid impulse to run from it?

The night after Ouma had found Saihara strung from the ceiling, he had dreamed, but he was just too tired to run. He never even tried he knew it was so futile, his legs were mush. He collapsed to the ground and surrendered to it, his inevitable future of being consumed alive by whatever sat in the darkness, but was overwhelmed by the odd sense of nothing.

There was never any blackness to begin with, and when he lifted his head, he realized it wasn’t that same nightmare he had tumbled into before. It was something different, and when an unfamiliar warmth wrapped around his upper arm in the shape of fingers, he turned with a frightened jump.

It wasn’t the black swarming over him, blotting out the sky and casting a human shadow over his frame. It was Momota, looking down at him with that glint gleaming from his exposed canines.

Ouma had done his best to forget that dream, but it stared him dead in the face now as he read the next message that was sent to him,

_I would, but Kaito-kun and I are going to see the DR movie in Tokyo._

Ouma’s finger pressed so hard into the shattered portion of his screen a part of it cracked and caved inward, leaving a hole to the circuited insides.

 _‘With Momota…? The DR movie with Momota? Is this… Is this some sort of joke?’_  Ouma reasoned desperately, his own internal laugh spattered with disbelief in the form of a dry crackle. He grasped in desperation, his fingers flying wildly as he typed out his own response, attempting to hold onto the crumbling bits of his sanity that slipped through and infected the exposed areas of his cellphone.

_Oh, that’s okay! Maybe afterward…? I don’t really have anything to do, so anytime is fine._

That was a lie, Ouma had an ever-increasing mountain of things to do. So much homework it felt like it was going to suffocate him, but he was willing to do anything to make this feeling go away. He would go anywhere, at anytime, do anything to be next to Saihara, and he needed it more than he needed whatever else right now.

He hated this, he just wanted to be with him right now, where he could hear his responses without these minutes of static silence and screens in between. He was always painfully awkward around Saihara, his presence made his heart rate increase regardless of what they were doing, but it was never a bad feeling. It was just his ineptitude, it spoke nothing to how happy he was when they got to be together. Those were the happiest moments of his life.

Why was it so hard for him to be happy?

_I’m not sure when we’ll be done, and I don’t want to make you wait around. Want to see the movie together after school sometime this week?_

Ouma threw his phone across the room and it hit the wall with a deafening bang, the paint chipping and creating another one of the many peeling chunks that littered it for other, less violent reasons. Though it blended in with the aging marks, it seemed brighter and more prominent, full of intensity.

When the phone clattered to the floor, Ouma squat down, holding his head in his hands as he began to rock back and forth on his heels. His vision was swirling as he curled his fingers into his hair, the twirling floor spiraling as he lost his ability to focus his eyes.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…” It took him a few minutes to realize his mental mumblings were spilling out of his mouth, barely intelligible in their tumbling speed.

“There’s no way, there’s no way Saihara-kun would… I can’t see that movie, I can’t be the second one he sees it with… There’s no way Saihara-kun would replace me… I can’t do it, I can’t lose… I can’t lose him already… I can’t… I won’t.”

What stopped his rambling was the strange realization that he wasn’t crying. In fact, his eyes felt drier than they ever had before in his life, almost painfully so, and he blinked to futilely bring some moisture to them. There was a burn behind them, a deep smoldering that spread from the innermost center of himself and through his face, sucking away all of the tears he could have potentially shed in some foreign, consuming emotion.

Crying would have been easy, it would have been what Ouma was used to. Sadness would have been easy, self-hatred would have been easy. But instead, he was left with a vile emotion he had no name for, and no experience with. Jealousy? That word was too weak to describe it, it wasn’t jealousy, it was as if his life was disappearing in front of him, and the blackness was at his back again.

Shooting to a stand, his knees cracking at the sudden and violent movement, Ouma balled his fists into the side of his weathered sleeping pants. The checkered flannel threatened to unravel in his terse grip, and he ripped at it as he turned toward his closet with stomping steps. The boy flung the doors open with both of his arms extended wide, the much smaller doors slamming against the wall and jostling in their tracks.

There, behind his sparse line of uniforms that he shoved to the side, the wall spread before him in a recognizable shape, but different light in Ouma’s boiling gaze. Polaroids stretched from the highest height his short arms could reach, to the table where his camera sat, blanketing the wall in the same navy hair and black hat.

Saihara walking, Saihara reading, Saihara biting into a crepe, Ouma had it all recorded with the shitty camera he had found sitting next to a trashcan on accident. He had picked it up thinking perhaps he could find a new hobby, caught off guard that it even worked. Maybe he could find something with beauty in the monotony of his shit-stain of an existence. Even if it was punctuated with pain, a sunset on the walk home could still be beautiful, and maybe a photograph could capture that by itself, remove it from the rottenness it may have been surrounded in.

Since he had nothing to photograph at first, and only a slight interest, Ouma had bought the cheapest film he could find. It still put a dent in his miniscule savings, hidden New Year’s money he had accumulated over the years from his Aunt he had never felt a need to use. He used it sparingly, a blurry picture of a black cat as it darted away from him at the perfectly wrong time, or the cherry blossoms stuck in the dirty puddles that pooled up outside of the school, but it never struck him with the imaginative fervor he supposed creatives had. When he had met Saihara, however, it was that explosion, an artist finding a muse at last, the reason for his everything now explained in one simple form.

After snapping a few pictures of Saihara walking home one day, frightened at first the sound would be heard through the other’s blaring headphones, he was struck with an uncontrollable urge. The compelling he had been lacking before rushed through him, the developing photos sending an electric jolt through his body no flower or sun bathing animal could. This was the answer, if he couldn’t be with Saihara at all times, at least he had this. He could look at these whenever he wanted, he could see Saihara in all of his truths.

Because it was true, he did know Saihara better than anyone. He knew the way he tilted his face when he went to itch at the left side of his head, or how he tapped his shoes against the ground before entering his home, the dirt flaking from his soles and leaving the entryway clean. All of it, Ouma knew all of it, and this was the pure proof of that. The tangible manifestations of every single one of Saihara’s most intimate actions, and Ouma was the only one that had them all. He could have known Saihara better than he knew himself.

His outreached hand fell softly on the photo in the center, his favorite and most treasured. It was the night Saihara had opened his window and tossed the measly drops left at the bottom of a can of lager he had somehow managed to get his hands on onto the roof, crushing the can afterward to hide underneath his bed with the rest. When he moved to withdraw into his room, he paused, for some reason turning his head upward to look at the stars curiously, his frame blanketed in the simmering light behind him with a perfect glow. That was the picture Ouma wanted, and he happened to move quick enough behind the lamppost to grab it, his fingers trembling as the shutter closed and he completely forgot the small click it would make.

He spent the next few minutes clutching his chest as he squat against the ground, breathing heavily until he heard Saihara’s window close and lock back into place. Letting out a shaky wheeze, he pressed his back up against the metal garbage can behind him, trying to recall the sight that had mesmerized him only a few moments before. He wasn’t sure the grainy camera had managed to capture it, but when he flipped the still-developing photo over, he knew it had, the outline of Saihara’s body protruding from the light behind it visible.

But it wasn’t beautiful enough now to distract Ouma like it had every time before, his hand falling to pick up the beaten camera. He turned it over in his palms and inspected the film count, only five left, the number almost ominous in its single digit. Once his inspiration had rolled over him, he had blown the last of his money on whatever film he could find, stacks of it disappearing as his wall expanded to encompass the entire back of his closet. He had no money now, no stash to rely on if he truly needed it. If his father decided to finally strangle the life out of his worthless son, there was no way he could run away, and if he needed to rescue Saihara from anything like he had before, there was no way he could.

But that was okay, because these were the last pictures he would ever need to take. It was the last time he would need to worry about all of that, about running away, about making sure Saihara was okay, about anything anymore. Money wouldn’t matter, because he was going to make sure they were happy together.

He was going to _make sure_ he was happy.

 

* * *

 

 

“And-And what did you think about the reveal of Junko at the end? Isn’t it always the best?!” Saihara swung his arms above himself in a wide circle, gesturing out his enthusiasm physically into the air. Momota responded with a sip at his empty soda, the gurgling the straw made signaling that no matter how much more he sucked on it, the drink was gone. Neither were perturbed by either thing, and continued their respective movements without regard to if it was trivial.

“This is my fifth time seeing it, and it’s still just so great…” Saihara stopped and turned to his companion, his hands clutching at his bag as he stood outside the entrance of the theater while his keychains swung behind him in an attempt to keep up with his movements. They clattered together noisily, the acrylic announcing his presence as an obnoxious otaku, but there was no shame in his excited movements. “I’ll definitely have to bring Ouma-kun to see it later this week.”

Momota made an outward expression at that, the first he had made over the past two hours of sitting through the… interesting choice of film. It was definitely a Danganronpa movie, and while he was conscious the entire time that if he was caught sitting in that theater seat by any of his gang he would be more than dead, it hadn’t been a total waste. The more he watched, the more information he absorbed; methods of killing, framing, trial tactics, shit he normally didn’t think about but he supposed would come in handy if he was really going to win a killing game. Plus, Saihara was at his side the entire time, and the purple hickies that blanketed his entire neck, ones he never attempted to hide, were an achingly present reminder of who he _belonged_ to. At least, whom Momota thought he ought to belong to.

It was a grimace, one covered by his straw but not completely, and when he pulled his mouth away from sipping air his eyebrows were knit together.

“Why?” He elaborated when Saihara only tilted his head, the long strands of his bangs shifting with him in an infuriating cuteness. “I mean, you’ve already seen it all those times.”

“Well, just because it never gets old! And I think he would really, really like it…” Saihara grinned unassumingly, and Momota felt his eyebrow twitch, the grimace morphing into a sickened sneer.

“Why do you hang out with him?”

“Huh?”

“What that little freak, why do you hang out with him?” The question was so unrelated to everything in Saihara’s mind, to Danganronpa, to the pleasant feeling that surrounded him as others poured out of the theater around them, that he wasn’t able to properly respond in time. “He’s weak, you know. The only reason you’re even here right now is because I wanted you to be, he wouldn’t have been able to save you if he tried.”

Saihara’s eyes fluttered to the ground for a second as he considered the harsh words, the questionable nature and volume of them enough to cause a few passing heads to turn toward them. But neither boy payed it any mind, too lost in their warped world to understand the terrifying essence of the sentence that made others look twice.

“It’s true Ouma-kun is weak... But isn’t that sort of thing super attractive?” Momota couldn’t concede to that; he liked a fight, at least at the beginning. All the tears and swaying that Ouma had done had proven he wasn’t a fighter, and the only time he had found the boy particularly attractive was when he was threatening to protect Saihara with all of his self.

While Saihara was a freak, one that submitted to his eventual ruin and failing life with enthusiasm, he also had a spunk in him. Underneath that apathy to daily life, and anything that wasn’t his favorite thing, there was still a fight to be alive, to cling onto what he enjoyed so vehemently he truly wasn’t ready to leave it all behind. And there was that fire behind his weird, not fully defined attachment to Ouma too, Momota had experienced that first-hand. That was what made Saihara different, he was disgusting enough that he was tantalizing, and attractive enough that he was worth paying attention to.

What Momota wasn’t aware of, was that Ouma’s reason for fighting, the fight he would rather die before losing, was standing right in front of him.

“Besides…” Saihara’s grin was innocuous enough to him as he lifted his head, but it looked mocking to Momota, his eyes obnoxiously gold under his curled eyelashes. “Doesn’t that just mean you’re jealous of him, Kaito-kun?”

The taller boy visibly twitched, his hand curling around the empty cardboard cup he was holding until it crunched loudly and collapsed in on itself. Jealous…? That was an understatement. He was _enraged_. There was no reason Ouma’s weakness should be attractive, there was no reason why Saihara should be tied to someone already when Momota had been looking for him for so long. Not only did he want to take Saihara away, possess him for himself, he wanted to erase the idea that anyone else had ever existed for him before in his life. He wanted to expunge his existence, make him dangle above every other inconsequential thing in the world by only one rope, that rope being Momota. He wanted to kill him, but he couldn’t, his mind wouldn’t let him. Was this how people normally felt when they had a ‘crush’…? Like he knew, all he knew was that he wanted to own him, consume him, eradicate him, ravage him, ruin him-

“Just joking. Anyway, let’s go to the merch store before anyone else gets there.” Saihara was, per-usual, entirely oblivious or unconcerned with the mental fuck that he caused others, instead reaching out and wrapping a hand around his free wrist. Tugging on it, he pulled the other into line behind him, the jangling of his keychains a signal enough of which direction he was heading, but his slightly sweaty hand was guiding him regardless.

“You said you liked the Ultimate Sukeban, right? I think I saw some stuff leftover last time I was there, but maybe they restocked more of it. I don’t really care for characters like that, but she’s pretty popular actually, so you might have to fight someone off for it,” swiveling his head back around as he spoke, Saihara grinned, signaling his joke as if his last one hadn’t been clear enough. “But I think you could totally beat them up, huh?”

It took Momota about three seconds to register the warmth sliding around his wrist, so much so he almost missed the overflowing trash bin as they left it. He managed to toss his empty soda in the general direction of it, but when it bounced off the pile and scattered to the floor, he was too busy following Saihara’s head with his eyes to notice.

Ouma scowled deeply as the plastic top to the cup broke off and the leftover ice spilled out onto the cement, already beginning to melt as it flowed beneath the cracks. Gross, did he have any sympathy at all? He was just going to leave his trash on the ground to get trampled on? He should at least understand its feelings, he was garbage himself after all. Trash understood trash. Or so he thought, but it turned out Momota had no feelings toward even the thing he related to the most. He really had no redeeming qualities, then.

As the pair disappeared into the crowd, toward the merchandise store across the street, Ouma’s eyes fell onto the thin fingers that spread over Momota’s revolting wrist and gave it the only meaning it deserved having. He could almost feel how it felt, to have Saihara’s hands on you, and despite the longing and disgust he still found himself unable to cry.

Just the dry, burning emotion he had been wrestling with since he had received that message, the one he had stewed in as he sat a train car away from Saihara and watched him through the glass doors while he tapped unknowingly on his phone. The feeling that had consumed him as he sat stalking behind an electrical pole for hours as the movie played inside, his black hood pulled over his face to conceal even more his presence that never went noticed.

He knew how to hide from Saihara, that was true, but Momota was different… He had no idea just how perceptive he was. There was something primal about him Ouma didn’t like, not that he liked anything, but he especially was wary of the tightness in his haunches and lingering pass of his gaze. He would notice, and Ouma knew he had been correct in concealing himself even more than he normally would, his face obscured by his hooded sweatshirt to anyone that was not directly in front of him. The proverbial mongoose under the house, waiting on the snake.

“U-Um…” But Ouma wasn’t sneaky enough outside of his focus, the already suspicious looking clothing choice setting him in direct contrast with the late Spring weather. He hadn’t even realized how much he had been sweating until his nails slipped past the metal he had been grinding them into, the voice interrupting his stare and making him jump. He turned, only half of his face revealed by the heavy layer of his hood, seeing a woman wearing an apron wavering unsurely as she stood a good distance from him.

“S-Sorry sir, but um… If you’re not going to buy anything, I’ll have to kindly ask you to stand somewhere else…” Glancing back nervously at the café behind her, there was a crowd of her coworkers around the door, not disguising the fact they had forced the junior into confronting the creepy lurker outside of the store. “The customers are starting to get uncomfortable… And um…”

How long had Ouma been standing there? He hadn’t even noticed the café, and he suddenly realized his maleficent presence was obscuring the relaxed atmosphere the place was supposed to have. True to her claims, a few of the customers were whispering, all seated as far from Ouma as they could but still close given the size of the tiny patio.

 _‘Just shut the fuck up, you don’t matter. You don’t have anything to do with Saihara-kun, so you don’t matter.’_ The words he thought were so vicious and unlike him they made him jolt, caught in surprise by his own inner monologue.

“O-Oh! I didn’t mean- I never meant to be a bother, I’m sorry,” there was something flat and dishonest in his apology as he extracted himself from his perch of observation, taking a few stumbling steps backward having lost the support of the pole. With his face revealed by distance, the young girl blinked, seeing the chubby cheeks and large eyes of a relatively normal looking kid. Knowing she had seen his face, Ouma took a few more stuttering steps back, before taking off, rounding the corner in a fast sprint as he pumped his arms, almost crashing into multiple people along the way.

It was fine, he didn’t need to stand there anymore, anyway. He had gotten what he came for, he had seen enough. When he was a good distance from the theater, and away from where he knew Momota and Saihara would spend the next couple of hours doing whatever they decided to do, he slowed to a full halt. He was breathing heavily, but the lack of other pedestrians garnered him no more stares or uncomfortable encounters. Here, he shoved his hands into his bag, past the smooth surface of his camera, and to the small stack of polaroids nestled next to it.

They spread between his fingers as he observed them, the shit quality of the paper and camera itself causing splotches and marks to litter the scenes. But they were still visible, even if part of Ouma wished they weren’t, almost blinding in their clarity in his eyes.

Four pictures, each taken at different times, but all carrying that heavy, twisted feeling that smothered Ouma until he thought he would splatter against the pavement. Momota and Saihara walking from behind, shoulders _too_ close, almost touching. Saihara paying for Momota’s ticket at the front of the theater, fingers buried without a second-thought in his generous wallet. Momota staring down at Saihara as his eyes were turned to the ground, the toes of their shoes close to kissing. And the last one he had taken, Saihara grinning back at the taller boy as he held his wrist strongly, the dark brim of his hat pushed back enough to reveal his ecstatic face to the sun.

Ouma didn’t need to know the reason, there was no way he could have known what Saihara had actually said in those moments. How he had spoken of Ouma, and smiled at his faults, admitted his attraction to him. Ouma didn’t need to know, because it didn’t matter to him. All semblance of rational thought or reasoning had left him, and there was only one thing that mattered to his feverish, warbled brain. The last picture he would ever take.

There were four pictures in his hand, which meant he had only one shot left. That was how he had meant for it to be, and he began giggling as his winning move seemed to move across the board. Crumpling the worthless pictures in his hand, he bit his lip to keep his deranged laughing relatively silent, his shoulders trembling each time he smashed the scenes into indiscernibility. They would never be seen again.

One shot left, what a double entendre. A perfect metaphor.

 

* * *

 

Plastic crinkled loudly as Ouma fiddled with the bag clutched to his chest, the blonde pigtails displayed on the front warped by his crushing grip. Turning his head for the umpteenth time, he observed the empty store, and especially desolate corner, no person visible as it had been before. He knew he needed to move quickly, but the realization to all the layers of fucked up he was about to descend into was paralyzing him, making his legs shake instead of walk.

Walls of characters surrounded him with their judgmental glares, truthfully glossy and empty in their packaging but seeming like a museum of scrutiny to the guilty boy. Their large breasts and manicured images were more unsettling than anything, models edited into half-human half-drawing states, no longer mammalian in their perfection but all the more tantalizing for that.

It was the sound of the door being opened that pushed Ouma to action, signaling another customer had entered the store. His ability to disappear had come in handy yet again, allowing him to sneak into the costume shop without being noticed, the cashier continuing to fiddle on their phone as he darted behind stands to the back of the store. They had perked up now, their voice greeting the customers as they began to give them the welcome quiz of what they were in for, the first few syllables sending Ouma sprinting into the dressing room he had been too nervous to enter before.

It was a sad excuse of a changing room, especially for a store that sold risqué costumes and other erotic goods. It was only a circular curtain that faced a wall with a mirror, though this was probably to keep any unmentionable activity out of the store. Ouma had no concept of that, however, and his only thought was to secure the fabric to the wall as quickly as he could, and to hide himself behind it.

When he faced himself in the floor length mirror, he was struck again with the vivid thought of, _‘Am I really doing this?’_

It wasn’t why are you doing this, or stop doing this, or anything that would have indicated he felt a smidgen of true reservation. But simple disbelief that he, Ouma Kokichi, had managed to make it this far all on his own. It would have been a concept worthy of pride, if it wasn’t resulting in what he planned to do.

Setting his bag down silently, he flipped the plastic over in his hand, looking at the voluptuous woman with her breasts pushed upward out of the black cardigan and resting on the Monokuma plush beneath. _Junko Enoshima – Size S_ was scrawled next to her pursed lips and shadowed eyes, the costume inside peeking out black and red beneath the cover.

Shakily, he unbuttoned the top of the bag and reached inside, his fingers burying into the skirt folded in it. It was lousy fabric, the kind that would fall apart if washed like normal clothing and scratched at your skin uncomfortably, but Ouma didn’t have much of a choice here. He didn’t have the time or ability to access his own fabric, and part of him wished this wasn’t the type of circumstance his first cosplay was going to happen in. He knew he could make something much better if he had a few tries. Plus, cosplaying with Saihara sounded… fun. It sounded like something Ouma really, really wanted to do, he could imagine the other’s face as he handed over an outfit he had worked hard on to make sure was worthy of being worn by him. Not the plastic buttons and uneven hem, but an outfit that really transported Saihara into his favorite character, Ouma too. He had wanted that so badly, to do that together. To do everything together.

But he was tired of letting that slip further away, of things not going the way he had imagined they would in his mind because he let others take control. He was tired of not being in control of his own fate, and not being in charge of Saihara’s either, because he really did know him better than anyone else did. This was Ouma’s one chance at being happy, the one thing in his life that could erase all of the other putrid worthlessness that piled up in every other portion of it. Not only was he tired of that being threatened to be taken away, he was tired of it being at the whim of others, as well. Tired of other people interjecting, tired of other people taking Saihara’s time and attention away, tired of a world that existed with anyone else other than the two of them.

Fastening the uncomfortable bra over his chest after a few fumbling tries, spurred on only by his churning determination, Ouma looked up at himself in the mirror. The checkered skirt he had slipped on was baggy on his waist yet held up by his hips, thankfully, but the cardigan was droopy enough the neckline dipped to his stomach and exposed the entirety of the lingerie below. He looked… Well, he wasn’t sure how he looked. He wasn’t attracted to himself, so he couldn’t say if he looked good or not, but he definitely looked weird. A skinny boy wearing a costume meant for someone with some semblance of a chest, and thighs, and feminine wiles. But that didn’t mean he thought he looked bad… In fact, if he knew anything about makeup, or wigs, or posing, he thought he might be able to pull off looking somewhat in-character. Of course, he could never do her justice fully, though.

As he parted his hair in two, segmenting the longest portions that would consent to being held up into small pigtails, he began fastening the Monokuma hair ties around the thin strands. He swung his body back and forth while he circled the elastic repeatedly, arching his spine and turning to see just how short the back of his skirt was, and if it would reveal anything if he wasn’t careful. As he peered down at his backside, he heard the jarring click of what sounded like a camera shutter going off behind him, ripping him from his idle thoughts with a small jump.

“E-Eh?” He squeaked as his eyes shot wide, sliding petrified through the slightly spotty mirror to catch the sight of a camera lens peeking through the open side of the curtain. It was dead silent as he saw the singular eye visible just above it shift, freezing like Ouma did.

Then the fabric ruffled abruptly, and it was gone, the sound of feet pattering against the ground as the person took off in a frenzied sprint out of the store. The clatter of them tripping over their feet and crashing into one of the many displays preceded the front door of the store bouncing against the metal hinges as they escaped in a flash, leaving Ouma still watching the settling curtain with shaking pupils.

He felt unable to react, the odd accumulation of teenage rebellion and fear that had built up inside of him at the miniscule crime he was committing before seeming to shrink in comparison to what just happened. Had that person just… taken a picture of him? They had been watching him get changed, changed into _this_ , and snapped a picture of him while he was wearing it. They had evidence now, they had an everlasting shot of Ouma wearing this truthfully lewd and unacceptable costume, the entire expanse of his thighs and chest exposed beneath whatever lace attempted to hide it. A stranger had seen him like that, and always would… Not just Saihara anymore, but whoever that was. And whatever else they decided to do with the picture… Ouma couldn’t fathom.

His mood sobered completely after that point, the nervousness sucked from his body in one fell swoop. He felt oddly cold, wrapping his arms around his body for a few seconds to pull himself back inside, unaware why he was shaking so bad. He realized he wasn’t cold, he was just shaking, no bumps across his pale arms and his hair flat against, but still shaking. Vibrating, almost.

 _‘Stop- Stop it, just… Just put the…’_ Ouma spoke to himself, as if he knew just how much of a dumbass he was on top of the distress he was supposed to be under, but his internal tone was flat. Why wasn’t he freaking out? Why was he _not_ distressed? Why was he only freaking out about not freaking out, and not being photographed by a pervert without his knowledge? Why did he feel good-

He stumbled over his feet as his leg was lifted in the air to be shoved into his pant leg, wobbling sideways and almost tumbling into the fragile curtain. It would have gone crashing, wrapping Ouma up and sealing both him crossdressing body and fate inside. Who needed handcuffs to arrest a shoplifter when you could just carry them out of the store?

He managed to maintain his balance though and button his pants, the once too baggy waistline fitting snuggly now as the skirt bunched up and filled the space between his stomach and the fabric. It wasn’t comfortable, and it made his entire lower half look bulky, but he didn’t have the time nor the willpower to fix it at the moment. He needed to get out of here.

This was the part he had always assumed would be the hardest, the actual meat of the morally repugnant plan he had managed to concoct in his brain. He had never even considered the act of shoplifting before in his entire life, he usually just stared at whatever he could only afford in his dreams before moving on and buying what he was really sent for. Beer and snacks, or a bag of rice, toilet paper, nothing as flashy as a Junko Enoshima cosplay. He could clutch the things he had bought for himself in his hands easily, his polaroid film and the gachapon Monokuma charm that swung from his phone taking up most of the space. Nothing like this.

Which was why he wasn’t buying it in the first place. He didn’t want to steal, he never wanted to stoop to the level of criminals and petty gang kids, but he had no choice. The guilt was immense, or at least he had thought it would be, but his entire frame felt hollow as he swiftly buttoned up his jacket. There was nothing, no biting nerves, no dull tears at his descent into criminality, just… nothing. The sound of a camera shutter going off inside of his brain.

Collecting his things, Ouma pulled the curtain back and peered into the empty store, nothing signaling anyone had been there in the first place. Whatever display they had toppled into never fell over, and everything looked like it had before he had stepped into the changing room. Yet he felt like a different person emerging, his shoulders squared as he took his first few steps toward the front of the store. When the door came into view, he clutched his bag to his chest, the fabric of his shirt rubbing up against the exposed portion of his bra and making his body shudder to a halt, a few steps before the cash register.

“Huh?” The cashier looked doubly frazzled when they saw Ouma, their perplexed face accentuated by the fall of their eyebrows. First, someone had sprint out of the store like they had seen a ghost, and now, someone was appearing from the back when they had assumed the entire place was empty.

Ouma tried to calm his fluttering heart, but each time it throbbed it made the lace shift, and it served as a constant reminder of what exactly he was wearing underneath his unassuming school uniform. This person was looking at him, and they had no idea, not just that he was stealing but that he was wearing something so suggestive underneath. His body was hot, it was burning, as the echo of a camera shutter went off inside his ears again, ringing in circles around his mind.

He only wanted Saihara to know he was wearing this, to see him in that way, not some stranger he had no connection to. But he couldn’t help himself, he couldn’t control how excited he felt, swallowing the thick drool that had pooled into his mouth and he shifted his arms across his sensitive chest, his body jolting again.

“When did you get here…? I mean- I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you come in. Did you need help with something?” Their tone wasn’t helpful at all, still suspicious and distant as they tried to dissect how the hell the kid managed to sneak in without them noticing, on top of the shady business before. But when Ouma took off in a sprint through the front door, his arms clenched around himself tightly, they never got their answer.

“Wait… Seriously?” They made a disgusted face as they watched him take off around the corner, not wanting to imagine what had happened in the back of the store without their knowledge. If those two people made a ‘mess’ in the changing room, they were _not_ going to be the one to clean it up.

 

* * *

 

 

“U-Um, hello! It’s nice to meet you! I’m very sorry for the intrusion, but I was just- Oh, wait, I’m sorry, my name is Ouma Kokichi. It’s ve-very nice to meet you,” Ouma felt his voice slip past his wet lips in a rambling blur, not actually thinking as he held down the intercom button with his shaking finger. Shaking was an understatement, it was convulsing, the tip white with a lack of circulation as he had to push so forcefully to keep it from sliding off the button in its tremors. “I-I’m Saihara-ku- Saihara-san’s classmate, and I was just, I was j-just, um-“

“Ouma-kun?” The female voice on the other end was unreadable through the speaker, but her short pause was clearly one of memory recollection before she spoke again. “Oh, yes, Ouma-kun! You’re the one who was sick, weren’t you? How are you feeling?”

“M-Much better, thank you very much!” He could have done with toning it down, he was borderline screaming into the microphone, causing the idle neighbor walking their dog behind him spare a questioning glance. But he needed to be as distinct as possible, his words portioned perfectly so he was legible and understandable through the distance. As legible as he could be given his disjointed stuttering. “It was all thanks to um, thanks to… your food…”

The meek boy squeaked the last part out weakly, cursing himself into the pits of the Earth for his inability to get his true feelings across. ‘Thanks’ to Saihara’s mother’s food? That was an understatement. He had never eaten anything that had made him feel the way that had made him feel, as if it had drained his entire body of the sick juices that flooded it and replaced it with what a human was supposed to be filled with. Vitality, and a will to live, surrounded by so much love.

“Ah, you mean those leftovers? That was barely anything!” It was only Ouma’s politeness that kept him from vehemently disagreeing, and he remaind silent in his modesty as she spoke. “Oh, I’ll buzz you in, sorry for being so rude. It’s hot out, isn’t it?”

“You don’t have to-!” Of course, she had to, getting into Saihara’s house was always part of the plan. But he was so embarrassed his mouth moved before his mind. Thankfully, Saihara’s mother wasn’t having it, and the gate let out a loud ring as the locks undid themselves and left the house defenseless.

Ouma could have run in with a machete and painted the walls red if he wanted to. But that wasn’t the plan.

When she opened the door to greet him after he closed the gate with unnecessary carefulness, he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes. Not from his typical timorousness, it stemmed from the ill-timed reminder of everything he had done with her son and was about to do. Ouma knew who Saihara was, he knew he hadn’t corrupted him, because you couldn’t pervert what was already perverted. But the things he had made him go through, the dangerous people he had approached, the knives and the box cutters and the soaked clothing, they were all things Ouma was sure the other would have never experienced in his high school life if he hadn’t had confessed to him. One day, maybe, definitely, his urges would have led him down the path of anything warped, but so soon… And to be almost killed by what could be considered a serial murderer-suicide-assister… It was obvious none of the ridiculousness would have happened if Ouma had never been there.

He felt the uncontrollable urge to apologize, but knew he shouldn’t say something so vague as ‘I’m sorry for ruining your son’ when he was certain she had no idea of anything that had happened. Instead, he kept his eyes low as he walked through the garden and caught only glimpses of the long grasses that peeked out from the sides of the elegantly placed pathway, the blades tickling his pantleg in a swarm.

“It’s nice to meet you properly, Ouma-kun,” her words forced his eyes up, and she stood in the doorway with her hands balled in front of her casual clothing. That was a mother. That was what a mother looked like, a real one, one he could hypothetically touch and know in some way. He had been close to mothers before, with their children in public or standing next to his classmates at ceremonies, but he had never known them, or eaten their food, or loved them by association. He would much sooner believe he had been formed from clay than birthed by another, towering female figure.

Saihara’s mother was smiling down at him with the slight wrinkles framing the edges of her lips, the sight more comforting than unattractive in the way that others would assert wrinkles would be. Ouma loved her already, he saw Saihara in her face, his presence seeped into her very bone structure and the thickness of her eyelashes, it was hard to look away. So he didn’t, and instead gazed up at her with his mouth opening and closing as it pushed out nothing but air.

“I-It’s a pleasure to meet you too! I apologize, really I can’t apologize enough for intruding… I shouldn’t have… I mean, I should have waited until S-Saihara-kun got home, but I wanted to bring these over and…” Ouma hated that life had made him a good liar. “And meet you, too. To thank you in person.”

Not necessarily a good liar, but a good selective truth teller. He had wanted to meet her, but that was never the end goal, or the main reason he came here. It felt gross to admit that in his mind, but he tore his eyes away when he reached into his bag for the cleaned containers that had once held the meal she had made for him.

Lifting them toward her sheepishly, she blinked in modest surprise, before smiling, “Oh, these things? You didn’t need to do that! How sweet of you.” She took the Tupperware and her warm fingers brushed Ouma’s oddly cold ones, freezing since his body had chilled over this morning, reminding him just how disconnected he was from reality. And just how little he cared.

“Come inside, then. Shuichi should be home soon… Honestly, that boy staying out when he knew he had a friend coming over…” She looked over the dishes the boy had handed her, inspecting the impeccable cleaning job he had done with an unreadable expression in her eyes. Why did she look… Nervous?

“It’s okay! I should have come later… I just wanted to… I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize for being polite, Ouma-kun. Come inside,” her insistence left Ouma wordless, lifting his downturned gaze to look up at her as if she was something undefinable shining before the beige paint of the house.

“…Okay,” Ouma relented, aware if he rejected too much, his plan was for naught.

And besides, Saihara’s house was so close, he was already leaning forward in an unconscious attempt to edge closer toward it. What would it smell like? What color were the floors? Were the windows as bright and sparkly as they seemed from the outside? Would he be able to sense him there, in everything? In the hinges of the doors, the polish on the China, the laundry hanging up to dry? If it was going to be like he was surrounded by Saihara on all ends, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to leave… Visions of him clinging to the doorframe as he was pulled out by hordes of police officers invaded his mind, but he ignored it.

When she passed through the front door she held it open behind her, and Ouma took the nervous step inside with about as much grace as was expected, stumbling slightly over the entrance but remaining upright. The collection of shoes that greeted him were all neatly lined and practically sparkling, fine leather and silks in colors he wasn’t sure were able to be so vibrant on something that walked across the ground.

It felt like a shame to put his own dirty, decrepit ones next to the row that belonged to the family, so he put them to the side, toes facing toward the door.

“Ah, tea, tea, I’ll make some tea. I’ll be right back-“

“I-I’ll help!” Ouma spoke as she began to glance around frantically, her eyes falling on him again as his voice squeaked over hers. She seemed almost afraid, and the boy shook his head, tendril hair bouncing. “I’d like to help.”

“No, that’s not how this sort of thing works…” The words didn’t come out how she had planned them to, and when Ouma’s face fell, she quickly explained. “ I didn’t mean it that way- I just, what kind of host would I be if I didn’t offer some tea to a guest? My son’s friend, no less… And the gift you sent last time…”

Such hospitality, and manners, and honors, it almost moved Ouma to tears. That would have meant something more if nearly everything didn’t move him to tears, but the sentiment was still there, a hand curling into his arm harshly to keep himself from smiling. Saihara’s mother was so much more outstanding of a person than he could have ever imagined.

“What am I saying… I’m sorry for sounding rude. I’ve just never, well-” She spoke anxiously before Ouma could begin to explain it was his fault, he had never done this sort of thing before. Been to a friend’s house, to someone more important than a friend’s house, and met their mother. Met someone as high-class and wonderful as she was. “Shuichi’s never had a friend come over before, so I’m not quite sure how to act…”

She laughed nervously, tucking her shoulder-length hair behind one ear and revealing the modest diamonds that decorated the lobe. Ouma was a bit caught off-guard by the revelation that he was the first person to enter Saihara’s home under the pretense of a friend, and almost laughed thinking it was some sort of ritual or joke he didn’t understand. But it had to be true, he knew Saihara’s mother wouldn’t lie, and it flooded him with a massive importance that almost offset everything he had felt throughout the day. Maybe he did matter.

_Almost._

“I… See. Well, I don’t really know much about these things either but, I’d still really like to help,” he waved his hands in the air, “O-Only if you want me to!”

She observed him, her eyes running up and down his tiny frame that seemed to shake with each movement her pupils made. They were both stuck in this dance of politeness, unsure if the other was outwitting them with their superior knowledge of house visiting, and that the first to give in would be the brunt of social distaste. They were at a stalemate.

In the fraction of a second, that felt eternal to those involved, the older and more confident woman broke, sighing as she let the plates in her hand relax against her side, “You’re right, I would appreciate your help, Ouma-kun.”

Her smile of encouragement was enough to make his shoulders lift and his face light up, following her into the house with slipper padded steps.

When they entered the kitchen, it was white and clean, gleaming countertops that were blanketed by the sunlight that streamed in from a spotless window. Seriously, Ouma had never thought a kitchen could be so white. There was no dirt in the corners, no irreversible stains, no yellowing on the edges of the walls that browned more and more each day. Every crack in the tile was intentional, and the fridge was full of accomplishments backwashed in bright silver.

As he marveled at the gentle curves of the handles on the block of knives, she began pulling out the tea kettle and filled it with water. When the clicks on the electric kettle shook him from his stupor, she was pointing upward toward a shelf that held a few potted plants and fancy looking wooden containers.

“Could you grab the tea for me? It’s in the square shaped one.” Her back was turned, partially to obscure the unsure pull at her lips, so she couldn’t see Ouma nod fervently. He stood on his tip toes and reached as carefully as he could for the soft box, cradling it with care as he pulled it off the shelf and close to his chest. Saihara’s tea.

The remainder of the snack making and tea preparation was done in lulls of conversation, Saihara’s mother asking all of the typical inquiries, or what the two thought were typical. What clubs Ouma was in (he lied and said chess), what work his family did (he lied and said construction), how he and Saihara had met with their age difference (he lied and said Saihara was his mentor from the entrance ceremony), what he liked to do in his free time (he lied and said play card games). He asked everything back, about her work, how long they had owned the house, if she had any family that lived nearby, as if he didn’t already know every single answer before it left her mouth. He smiled widely, almost suspiciously so, when she listed her daughter’s volleyball accomplishments, remembering the time Saihara had posted about wanting to kill her online.

When the snacks were laid on a tray and the tea was stirred, they sat side-by-side on the plush couch in the living room in tense silence. Ouma blew on his tea with a few puffs, as if his weak wheezing would offer any semblance of conversation he couldn’t, when he jumped at the sound of her voice.

“U-Um, can I…” Her voice seemed hoarse at first, like she was afraid to use it, which it in turn sent Ouma’s own anxiety spiking through the roof. He wasn’t sure why, but when he considered the lingerie underneath his clothes he thought perhaps there was a reason. He had been trying very, _very_ hard to forget the lace scratching against his chest when he covered his face with the cup.

“Can I ask you something, Ouma-kun? It may be a bit… Odd.”

“Uh-huh…” The boy nodded and she let out a sigh of relief, not seeing him shift his legs together to resettle the skirt beneath his pants.

“I just… Well, I’d like to know if Shuichi is doing okay at school. There’s just so much a mother worries about, you know. I’m sure your mother is the same way,” before Ouma could open his mouth to reassure her, or comprehend himself that he didn’t have a mom that wasn’t Saihara’s mom, she continued on, her worries seeming to flood from her lips over the steam of the tea. “Shuichi has… Well, like I said, he’s never brought a friend home before, which would be okay if it wasn’t like this since he was a child. Even then, he never had anyone it seemed like he was very close with.”

Ouma wished he had a notepad, a recorder, _something_ , to take this all down. Was that fucked up? It didn’t seem to be particularly happy information, but that didn’t matter to him, because it was information on Saihara. It was the things he couldn’t learn on his own, through his own well-honed skills of stalking and observing. He had no way of knowing Saihara’s childhood, without asking directly from the source, and thankfully, that source seemed more than willing to give him the last few morsels of data he had been missing. The things that had been really clinging to the back of his psyche and turning him insane: Was he Saihara’s first anything?

When she saw Ouma so eager, his eyes going wide as if he was ready to vehemently disagree at any moment, not knowing the true reason, her shoulders relaxed. Maybe she had been mistaken all along, and if this boy could assuage her doubts then she could believe she hadn’t failed as a mother.

“To be honest, you’re the first name I’ve heard him ever mention from school, Ouma-kun. I wanted so badly for you to be his friend, maybe I came off as a little overbearing, and I’m sorry for that. I think I let my worries get in the way…”

‘ _The first…? I’m the first person Saihara mentioned to someone so precious to him, to someone so important? I’m his first…?’_ Ouma curled his fingers into the artfully crafted glass and his nails squeaked against the clay, shrieking in his ear but masked by her soft sigh.

“He’s been sleeping more too, you know. Whenever I walk by his door, whether it’s midnight or four in the morning, he’s awake on his computer… But he slept for the whole night the other night, the second he got home. And he went out today to see a movie with another friend, I had just assumed it was you which was why I was so surprised when you showed up on my doorstep,” she laughed at her silly mistake, waving her hand flippantly as if she was chatting with an old friend. “But, that just means he has more friends now, too. I can only hope they’re as kind as you are, and maybe he’ll introduce me to them someday.”

 _‘That’ll never happen, that won’t happen. I will never let that happen. That will never, ever happen. I won’t let it happen. I’m sorry, Saihara-san, but that won’t ever, ever, ever happen. I won’t let him step foot in this home, I won’t let him ruin it. I’ll kill him, I’m sorry but it won’t happen._ ’

“I think…” Ouma lifted his head from glaring into his cooling tea, where his eyes had gone wide and wild. The rings in them were pulsating with disgust and hatred, that turned completely placid when they shot up to meet her gaze. “I think since meeting you he’s gotten a little better at opening up. I think I was overreacting all this time, Shuichi can be a little shy, so I assumed the worst… Ah well, thank you for listening to an old woman’s rambling.

And thank you for being his friend, Ouma-kun.”

Ouma lost the ability to speak as the tea began to shake in his hands, so much piling up inside of him he wasn’t sure how to respond to such honest, cherished words. This whole thing, it was so twisted, so twisted he wanted to puke. He just wanted to tell the truth. Should he tell her the truth? About who Saihara was with, about what had made Saihara sleep so easily the other night, about all of it? Maybe then they could protect him, pull him away from Momota right this second, and keep him safe. They could do it together, Ouma didn’t have to do it alone, he could do it with her and Saihara would definitely be safe. He could tell her how much he loved him, how Saihara was his everything, how much he had given him and how proud she should be to have someone as wonderful as a son. If he just told her the truth, then-

“I guess next it’ll be a girl showing up at my door, introducing herself as his girlfriend.” She giggled into her palm. “A mother can only hope. Ah, that reminds me of something, let me go grab my photo album…”

She pushed herself to a stand to walk away, turning just in time to miss the two hot tears that rolled down Ouma’s cheeks as the truth evaporated into thin air.

The only person that could save this situation was himself.

When she returned with a stack of scrapbooks, Ouma had composed himself and gulped down half of the lukewarm tea in order to seem grateful. He tore open a package of rice crackers and shoved one in his mouth, chewing down the salty-sweet flavor.

He felt ashamed he had cried in the first place, over something so silly as realizing what he had known from the start. It wasn’t as if he didn’t trust her to help, it was just that he had let it go on for so long in this direction that it was his job to fix it now. There were so many things she wouldn’t understand, that would maybe make her afraid, and it would take too long to explain… Even if he knew how kind she truly was, she couldn’t understand it all.

Maybe, if Ouma had stepped in earlier and done what he had always known he needed to do it wouldn’t be so convoluted. But that was his fault, at the end of the day, and he couldn’t drag anyone else into it. It was his game to finish, after all.

It was just the whiplash of emotions, from feeling so special at being Saihara’s first school-friend, to the anger of being reminded who he was really with right now, to the sinking realization he was playing the endgame now, that made him cry, that was all. He felt rather placid now, composed completely as he ignored the crumb clinging to his pale cheek when she leaned over to show off a page of the opened book.

“See, here was Valentine’s in elementary school. All the girls brought chocolates in to give to the boys, the school made sure everyone got one from each girl, so it wasn’t unfair,” pointing her long fingernail toward a slightly faded photo, a small boy sat, his hat barely obscuring his chubby face and the confused expression that sat there. He was looking down at the pile of heart-shaped boxes on his desk with complete disinterest, almost blank in a terrifying way if someone was being honest. Ouma was barely able to catch his breath before she pointed toward the image next to it, of the same quality, “And this was on the following White Day, where the boys were supposed to do the same. _Supposed_ to, I stayed up all night making these chocolates for him to hand out and look what he did! He ate them all!”

Again, but hatless this time, Saihara sat in the living room identical to the one Ouma was in with his eyes avoiding the camera. There were empty bags and wrappers that once held chocolate at his feet, and a tell-tale stain around his mouth. Ouma’s hand flew up to cover his mouth to hide the disbelieving smile that overtook him, but when she began to laugh in nostalgic bliss, he let out his own giggle that was building inside of him.

Cute, cute, he was just so cute! Ouma couldn’t believe he was getting to see something like this, something as precious as this! If only his eyes were cameras, but he never lifted them away, instead studying intently so he would never forget the sight.

“I guess he never really cared much for the whole romance thing,” she wiped at the tears of laughter beading in her eyes as she spoke, her words thankfully floating away in the air as Ouma only remained focused on the images. She moved her finger to another, and his eyes followed, lighting up when he caught sight of the young boy again. “And then there’s this one, from the beach trip that same year-“

They spent what felt like hours perusing years and years of family memories Ouma could have never imagined he would get to be a part of. If only through observing them in photographs a decade after the fact. Middle school graduation, work-funded trips, even Disneyland, Ouma had managed to dig his fingers into all of them by burning their images permanently into his mind. He asked endless questions, out of pure curiosity, and the need to keep the pictures around as long as possible so he could memorize them more. If he ever forgot any of this, he wouldn’t forgive himself. These precious moments, these cherished memories, everything about Saihara…

These memories belonged to him now.

Halfway through explaining the family excursion to Hawaii, where Saihara managed to get so sunburnt he almost got sun poisoning despite never leaving his room unless necessary, a loud beeping disrupted her loving ranting. Blinking as if she had been thrust unwelcomingly back into reality, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a pager, the small screen scrolling with green light.

“Oh… Now of all times…”

Ouma was leaning in, closer and closer now that the space was open, to the picture of Saihara’s bare shoulders tinted red with a painful glow. He had never seen someone so sunburnt, and he had never thought someone could look so _cute_ sunburnt, even with a massive frown on his face. He wanted to touch where the memories of the burn faded across his body, and dig his nails into him, maybe his teeth, maybe slip his tongue-

“I’m so sorry, Ouma-kun… Since I wasn’t expecting any visitors today I told the hospital it was okay to put me on call. A big rush of traumas just came in, so they need me as soon as possible…” She looked visibly hurt, like reliving the treasured moments of her oldest child’s youth had been the most wonderful thing she had done in ages. But now it was punctured with shrill ringing, along with a reality that he would soon be grown up and gone.

“H-Huh?” Ouma managed to not be drooling when he lifted his head to look up at her, but his expression must have been laughable enough, as she let out a small giggle.

“Sorry, I bored you with all that reminiscing, didn’t I? I guess I’m older than I thought I was,” she placed a hand on her cheek and grinned with a self-conscious waver.

“Not at all!” Ouma pulled back a bit, the heat of the picture of Saihara shirtless was still below him, swallowing to maintain composure. “I mean- Saihara-kun doesn’t really talk about… Well, we haven’t really had a chance to talk about stuff like this, so I’m really, really glad I got to see it all… Really glad.”

“Is that so? Well, I’m glad it wasn’t a hassle to listen to,” she laughed and Ouma smiled at the noise, watching her face fall to contemplative confusion. “Ah, but no one’s home… My husband and daughter are out on a camping trip for the long weekend, and Shuichi still hasn’t come home yet… But kicking you out is just-“

“I can stay!” Ouma blurted out before he could comprehend the intrusion the statement caused. “I-I mean, if it’s alright, I could watch over things until Saihara-kun gets back. I me-mean, not to say this is a bad neighborhood at all, it’s very lovely. You just can never be too careful, and-and he should be back soon since the movie ended a while ago, and…”

There was a moment of silence in which Ouma could only pray his slur of borderline-lies had worked, hoping he hadn’t revealed too much with the last line. The air conditioning of the sweet-smelling home rolled over him, but a bead of sweat still trickled down the back of his neck.

“That… That’s very nice of you, but won’t you be lonely? We could go to the station together, and I can wait with you until Shuichi-“

“Mm-mm,” the boy shook his head so quickly it startled her, leaning back as he mustered up a smile. “I’m used to it! Besides, he… Ah-He told me, um, he’d be back soon, anyway so...

He hated that he had to do things like this. But it was the only way. He couldn’t leave this house.

“I see…” While she seemed unconvinced for a moment, seeing his earnest nervousness was enough to win her over, the goodness of his soul shining from his weak smile. Of course, if he was Shuichi’s friend, he meant them no harm, and wouldn’t mind waiting for a bit.

“Alright then, I’ll just clean up the tea-“

“I can do it,” Ouma was incessant, his big eyes going impossibly wide as he leaned toward her, sending her heartrate spiking for a reason she couldn’t understand. “I wouldn’t want you to be late for work, so I can do it. I won’t break anything, I promise.

But, could you show me to Saihara-kun’s room, before you leave?”

Up the stairs and to the left, Ouma knew where he was going exactly without her guiding him. He felt almost annoyed that he had to be lead around, as if anyone knew where Saihara slept better than he did, or where he walked every day more than he did. And then he felt bad about being annoyed, because he remembered who he was annoyed at. But at the end of it, when they stopped outside of his door, he had lost the ability to care.

Apologizing for her careless son’s mess, she opened the door to his room without a second thought. This lack of privacy didn’t surprise Ouma, it was normal afterall, but what did was the scent that hit his nose the second the door slid on its hinges.

It was like being surrounded by Saihara, being inside of him, enveloped in his absolute presence when he stepped through the white doorway. A rush, something that hit him directly in every single one of his senses, and deep in his abdomen, overtook him at the warmth. He almost cried, his eyes stung with a harsh pull at all of his love, his knees beginning to shake and clatter together silently.

He was finally in Saihara’s room.

His mother left to go change for work, but the mousy boy was too overwhelmed to respond. It was so hot. Saihara’s room was scorching, Ouma felt like he was going to faint at any second. He had always known Saihara ran hot, he always seemed to be sweating and burning up when he touched Ouma’s frigid skin, and even his room replicated that feeling. Ouma swallowed as the saliva overflowed in his mouth in an attempt to cool him down, but it seemed to flood back with the rest of the rushing emotions that churned inside of him.

He couldn’t explain how much it meant to him, to be here finally, in Saihara’s room. This was the physical embodiment of himself, aside from his actual body of course, and everything in this room _was_ Saihara. If Ouma lived here, surrounded endlessly by everything that was Saihara, he thought he would never, ever be sad again.

Stepping in further, the floorboard creaked, and a faucet turned on down the hall, but Ouma heard nothing. Nothing other than his racing heartbeat, thump, thump, thumping in his whole body as it shook.

It was… perfect. Everything was perfect. There were posters over every inch of the wall, large Monokuma plushes that rested against the bed, two whirring monitors with a neon backlighted keyboard, a sizable television on a table cluttered with gaming systems, clothes scattered across the floor, an unmade bed, a hat on the dresser…

 _‘A hat? Is this…?’_ Ouma took another cautious movement inward, zeroing in on the familiar clothing item. He had more than one? Well, it made sense, he wore it every day. It would have to get cleaned somehow, but imagining Saihara going in public without his hat was like imagining someone walking utterly naked into a department store.

This one appeared to be less worn, only slightly frayed and missing the patches of fabric that had rubbed off on the one he was likely wearing right now. But it still had signs of use, and Ouma’s arm darted out to snatch the brim up before his mind even comprehended how careful he needed to be with it. It was in his hands and pressed up against his nose in an instant, inhaling deeply as the scent infected his mind into a hazy mess.

 _‘Saihara-kun… I can smell him. I can smell him so clearly… It smells so good.’_ His lips were wet as he continued to inhale and exhale violently, unable to control himself when his fingers curled into the dark fabric. After a few minutes of holding it directly against his face, he licked his lips to trap the saliva that threatened to drip from his mouth, and tore the hat away from his face. He looked at it, his mind spinning, as his fingers ran over the edges and dips of the fabric.

Swallowing once more, with shaky hands, he brought the hat to sit on his own head. It was just a bit too big, but he kept it in place with his fingers on the brim and the latch on the back, the frayed portions of his hair tamed by its total blanketing. He stood completely still, almost afraid to move, as the feeling of wearing Saihara’s hat settled over his body.

Then he began to giggle, his shoulders shaking in a messed up, embarrassed joy. Turning his eyes upward, he tried to catch a glimpse of the hat fruitlessly, but was shown a dark brim that loomed over him instead. It was amazing, it felt like Saihara was standing over him, his warmth on his head, his presence swinging just out of his line of sight, constantly-

“Ouma-kun…?” The sound of an intrusion made him jolt, turning on his heels, still clutching the cap as he made wide eye contact with Saihara’s mother. “Oh, that hat…”

“I-“

“Is it really that common of a style? I didn’t think hats were that popular these days, but shows what I know,” she put a hand on her cheek as she spoke, the wedding band glistening with her movements. “That hat has caused us so much trouble. We’ve had to pay a fine at every school he’s gone to just so he can wear it. He would throw tantrums if we tried to make him leave the house without it… I even bought him that new one, but he keeps wearing the old one he has now.”

Ouma tried to look up again at the hat, but it was still on his head, and just the brim shadowed his gaze. He was still reeling from being caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to, but she oddly didn’t seem too freaked out about it. It almost seemed like she found it endearing. Laughing when he looked back down at her with the same freakishly wide eyes.

“At least you don’t pull it low and hide behind it like he does.”

The words caught Ouma off guard, but they seemed to be frivolous to her, checking her pager once more as if whatever had just transpired meant nothing. At least he knew where Saihara got his ability to just not care from.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright alone here? I’m pretty sure leaving your guest alone in your house is the definition of rude,” she mused.

“It’ll be fine!” Ouma reassured her as he promptly ripped the hat from his head, holding it behind his back like he could hide he ever touched things without permission. “ _I’ll_ be fine, I’m sure Saihara-kun will be back soon, I’m sure of it.”

The only thing that had struck her as curious about Ouma since she met him was his manner of speaking. There wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with his words on the surface, or the way he said them aside from his nervousness, but there was always something… unexplainable to it. Something off, something odd, something more. Like what he was saying carried a double meaning, a meaning she was completely lost on, as they were innocent words. Why did it sound almost like a threat, to both her son and everyone around, for Ouma to be sure he would return soon…? There was something just unsettling floating on the edges of his entire existence, now that she thought about it, from his just a bit too wide pupils, to his frantic fidgety movements, to his layered phrases; he was just peculiar.

But she didn’t mind, really. As long as Shuichi had a friend, that was all that mattered. And standing in his room surrounded by the odd things her son loved that she never understood, she found a bit of peace in the way Ouma didn’t seem to mind it all.

When she left the house, Ouma standing in the doorway with an awkward, poorly mustered smile, it was oddly cold, despite the lowly hanging sun.

 

* * *

 

 

Back in Saihara’s room, alone this time, the boy snatched up the hat he had set down reluctantly with greedy swiftness. He promptly pressed it to his nose, no restraint this time, and inhaled the distant, barely noticeable scent of Saihara on the fabric.

The harder he inhaled, the more he could smell, and the dizzier he got. But he had to breathe in harder, harder. The smell was so weak, the more he tried, the more he finally got closer to it, and he couldn’t stop. He kept going until his vision was swallowed in black and his body felt as light as a puff of smoke, floating off the ground, swathed with the scent.

Wobbling a bit on his now unsteady legs, he stumbled a few steps backward until his heels connected with the bed behind him and he finally lost his balance. He landed on the surprisingly soft bed, almost illegally soft, and couldn’t control the noise he made as a result. Some sort of strangled moan, masked by the fabric directly against his face, but loud enough to echo around the empty room and paint the walls with vivid lust.

Ouma hadn’t even touched himself and he was already fully hard.

“Saihara-kun…” He rolled onto his side and curled into a ball, the shifting of his clothes pushing the itchy bra he wore closer against his chest and making him twitch with surprise. He let out a confusing squeak as his hand flew down to cup the raised bump in his pants, body spasming again as it seemed to move on its own, propelled to licentious forwardness by the smell alone.

Managing to pull the hat from his face, he saw the black fabric covered in his own drool, shiny and blanketing the entire side. The smell of his own liquid had completely defiled the scent he was chasing, but he wasn’t upset about it. Because he had something even stronger now.

Still holding the hat in a crushing grip, refusing to let go even as he warped the fabric and ruined its shape, he pressed his face into the heavy comforter beneath him and rolled onto his stomach. Sinking into the place Saihara spent uninterrupted hours every night, if he decided to sleep, it was the most unsullied, pure collection of his smell Ouma could possibly find.

His body wiggled as he tried to inhale so hard he was almost choking, limbs twitching as if he could have cum right then from nothing else. His hips began to rub against the bed on his own, unable to stop himself as the thoughts of nothing but Saihara flooded his mind. Saihara, Saihara…

“Saihara-kun, Saihara-kun, Saihara-kun,” he was almost crying as he rutted against the bed, his hips already beginning to burn from the constant humping that got faster and faster the more he smelled. He couldn’t help himself, he couldn’t stop, the thought of Saihara’s scent, his entire being, touching him blanketing him violating him covering him in the ways he had before was filling his mind until it was a haze of nothing but his name, “Saihara-kun…”

Turning his face to the side, Ouma cracked his wet eyes open slightly to see the hat next to his face in a blurry, black blob. Letting out a wine, his hips worked themselves into a frenzy as he pressed the hat to his face, the wetness of his own drool cold against his nose, but he could still smell him. His air choked off, inhaling everything that made his love his love until he was shaking and barely conscious, body going rigid against the bed as he cried out.

It was like he was melting into him, dissolving in his smell and his belongings and his essence and his everything to the point his twitching body felt like it would never stop. He hadn’t been able to control himself, he wasn’t sure what had come over him, or what still currently was. Now his clothes were ruined, though only where he could see, and he had done something so dirty on Saihara’s bed… But he was completely lost on caring. His blissed-out mind was wrapped only solely in the feeling of curling his fingers into Saihara’s blankets, and that if he inhaled deep enough he knew he would do it all over again.

What was there to feel guilty about?

Saihara was his, afterall.

 

* * *

 

 

When Saihara got home, all of the lights in the house were off, and it was oddly quiet. His mother should have been home, and she hadn’t sent him anything about going out, but he wasn’t complaining. Whatever had taken her out of the house, whether it was shopping or idle visiting, it meant he was alone. And after seeing Momota, he had experienced a rush of memories that definitely left him with the need for alone time.

Climbing the stairs to his room, not lost in the dark and with no reason to turn any lights on, he made it to his room as he realized just how tired his body was. He hadn’t woken up that early of his own choice in so long, and something about sleeping more as opposed to getting his regularly planned 2-4 hours was even more exhausting. Well, he just had one thing to do, then he would pass out.

He set his bag down carefully this time, it wasn’t his schoolbag, it had all his charms on it he would never dream of scratching, and flicked the light on in his room. Loosening his tie next, he flung himself onto his mattress with a graceless flop. His bed was neatly made and welcoming, sinking in as he fell face first onto the fluffy comforter. It smelled strangely good, for some reason.

Rolling on his back, he undid the zipper on his pants and kicked them off his legs, basically having to peel them off with expert wiggling as he was too lazy to sit up. God, he could have sworn they were going to glue to his legs he had sweat so much today. It was getting hotter and hotter, which was more of a reason to never go outside unless he absolutely needed to. Outside, in public, that was hell.

Letting himself watch the fan on his ceiling slowly lull to life, he felt his mind go blank for a few minutes. A reflex to calm himself after so much in a day.

When the thoughts returned, they were what he had spent the majority of the day thinking about, and that was Momota. There was so much about him that was just… _so much_. It was really weird, weirder than anything Saihara had ever encountered. His physical presence was all-consuming, his voice was booming, his outbursts and his stone-cold silence made it feel like he was surrounded by a wildfire that sometimes lept at his feet, and other times cooled to a barely visible smolder. Or, like he was dealing with a child.

Either way, it was different, and interesting at least. Saihara couldn’t say he had a type, and he couldn’t say Momota fit that whatsoever, but it didn’t really matter to him. When he had held onto his wrist, and felt how the tendons underneath it had flexed with an almost threatening power, his entire throat went dry. His hands were so big, they could have wrapped around his neck with only one grab he imagined, and there wouldn’t be anything he could do.

He pulled his underwear off next, and lost himself in the memories of what Momota had done to him. His body was still so sore, but each time it ached it was only a reminder of what had happened to him, what almost could have happened to him, and it felt so, so good. He could have died, he really could have died, if it hadn’t been for Ouma he wondered if he really would have died. Ouma, Ouma had saved him, it felt so good. Life and death tugging at him both ways, ripping him apart in two, his whole-body convulsing as he came onto his stomach.

Once he reached for the tissue box nearby and wiped himself off, he rolled over, gave up on undressing himself, and fell asleep.

Ouma watched from the closet the entire time.

He had to cover his mouth to keep from letting out the noises that were bubbling up in his throat as he looked through the slats in the door. One hand was tugging down the front of his skirt in a vain attempt to cover his arousal, aware he couldn’t touch himself no matter what. If he touched himself, he wouldn’t be able to be quiet, it would ruin everything. But he wanted to, he wanted to so badly. The curves of Saihara’s hipbones and the way he wiggled around the faster his hand moved sent his body into a vibrating mess. When his chest lifted off the bed, and his whole body tightened, Ouma could almost feel how he felt, the rush of pleasure that shocked him to his toes and left his mind utterly blank.

In the moments before his brain went white, was he thinking about Ouma?

It wouldn’t be any good if he was thinking about someone else. That wouldn’t do, that should never happen. Ouma could make him feel better than anyone, he knew he could. He just got… nervous, was all. He wasn’t as sure as Saihara was, it was hard to be sure when you weren’t sure any of it was real. The person you loved most in the entire world, grinning down at you, drooling into your mouth, Ouma still couldn’t believe it was real.

But he was going to do better, he was already trying so hard… Getting here, wearing this, he had done things he never thought he would have done. All for Saihara, it was all for Saihara. He would definitely make him happy.

 

* * *

 

 

Saihara was in the midst of a dream, one where he was sitting on top of a tower with not much else around. There was a purple light pulsing in the sky, each time letting out a new ring of illumination that blanketed the black around him, and left his mind swarmed with a sound that reverberated around his skull. It wasn’t unpleasant, just psychedelic.

The light got brighter, louder, searing, until it bore a hole through his eyelids.

He was just opening his eyes.

“…-hara-kun?”

His brain was a hot, fuzzy mess. Why was he awake? He would never, ever wake up if he had the choice, but especially in the middle of REM sleep. He just felt more tired now, and he would have committed a violent crime just for a night’s rest at this point. Ripped sleep from the trachea of whatever pulled him out of it.

But there was talking, soft in his ear, and he lost his murderous rage instantly. Sweet, clean, a bit low, it sat uncomfortably opposite of the pain he felt in his eyes.

“Saihara-kun.”

When he opened his mouth to speak, it felt like unlocking a door sealed shut for a millennium. Dusty breath wafting out beyond his cracked and peeling lips. He tried to speak but his throat was closed and all he could let out was a pitiful ‘Ah-‘

“Oh good, you’re awake!”

It was blurry at first, but when his eyes adjusted to his now on overhead light, he saw a blanket of purple over his face.

“O-uma…?”

Ouma pulled back from whispering in his ear and sat up, his weight on his lap now fully settled and obvious. He was brightly grinning down at him, bright enough to block out the glaring light, and all Saihara could see was his face.

“G-Good morning! Sorry to wake you up so late aha…” He didn’t look very sorry at all, aside from the quivering of his smile. But it always did that, so what it really meant, Saihara had no idea.

“I don’t-“

“How was your day? Did you eat enough?” Ouma tilted his head to the side and the strands of his hair went with him. They partially covered his wide eyes, and the still sleep-hazed boy had the muddled urge to reach out and brush them away to clear his face.

When his hands twitched only slightly, he felt their inability to move, and his body went rigid.

“A-Ah… Sorry… Sorry about that,” Ouma’s eyes flashed up to the restraints fastened to Saihara’s headboard, zip ties he had found in the miscellaneous drawer of his home he knew wouldn’t be missed. Saihara was a really, really heavy sleeper.

Someone could have slapped two metal pots together directly next to his ears and he wouldn’t have woken up, let alone wake up to Ouma’s gentle touch and feather-light fingers gently coaxing him into submission.

“Does it hurt? I tried my best to make sure it wouldn’t hurt but… I’ve never done that before though so let me know.”

“Ouma-kun, what are you doing here…?”

What time was it? Where were they, really? It had to be Saihara’s room, his legs were brushing up against the life-size Monokuma plush that always sat on the edge of his bed, and it all looked the same from what he could register. But if they were in his room, how was Ouma here? How had Ouma managed to enter his home, tie him up, and look like…

_Look like that._

It was the first time Saihara had looked away from his face, and what he saw left him frozen in full silence. Cosplay, decking Ouma out in a lewd, indescribable form, the large shape of the ill-fitting cardigan slipping off his shoulders to reveal the black straps of the bra he wore underneath. When Ouma saw his eyes wandering, he looked down as well, hurriedly lifting up the sides of the sweater to be back where they were supposed to be. He needed everything to be perfect, he couldn’t forgive himself if they weren’t.

When the fretting boy’s head was bent down, Saihara noticed the two pigtails on his head, tiny Monokumas dangling from the thin strands. Cute.

“Ouma-kun-“

“Sorry, sorry!” All fixed, Ouma looked back down at him now, sheepishly smiling in a weak attempt to calm him. “I probably scared you so badly, but don’t worry. Your mom let me in.”

Mom? So that meant…?

“She’s home?”

“Huh? Of course not.” Ouma shook his head, the tiny bears bobbling with him. “She left a long time ago, she’s not going to come home.”

…What was that supposed to mean?

“I… Okay?” What else was he supposed to say? Was it fucked up he wasn’t scared, or off-put by any of this? Was it desensitization, or just pure apathy that kept him from caring that he was tied up, all alone, with the boy that had an obsessive crush on him? He had read and watched enough fucked up stuff, but he had always assumed if something like that happened you would be genuinely scared.

He had been scared with Momota, at least for a few minutes. But he wasn’t scared now, just confused. And a bit happy Ouma was in his lap, looking the way he did.

“You don’t need to worry, Saihara-kun… Because I’ll… I’m going to…” Ouma closed his eyes for a second and swallowed, grounding himself before his next words. They weren’t even that bad, get over it, he had rehearsed them over and over in the mirror before he had heard the front door open a few hours ago. He had posed himself, observed every angle, adjusted anything he could, to make himself as perfect as possible, as perfect as someone as worthless like him could be.

He had prepared everything flawlessly, and he was trying his hardest, so why was it so difficult to just do it right? His shoulders still slumped, and his words fumbled, Saihara’s piercing eyes on him enough to send him shivering.

“I-I’m going to… take care of you now…”

It was then Saihara remembered he was naked from the waist down.

Bad timing to remember that, when Ouma’s chest lifted as he inhaled, and the lace of his bra peaked out from behind the folds of the black cardigan. His legs were spread, how hadn’t he noticed? Spread around Saihara’s thighs and so warm, bony but warm. The softest part of him was positioned directly onto his lap, and with every small movement he made, it rubbed up against his completely exposed dick.

There was something rough there, a bit of fabric, and it became obvious he was wearing a thong. Ouma, wearing a thong, a skirt, a cosplay, straddling him as he was tied up in his own bed.

He didn’t fucking care how he got here, where anyone was, what it all meant, how could he not get hard?

He was disgustingly simple some of the (all of the) time.

Ouma blinked when he felt the stirring beneath him, a small jump that sent his own blood pumping as well. That was… part of the plan, right? Why did it make his face scorch bright red?

“Where did you buy that?” Saihara was breathing a bit heavier, looking up and down and up and down his frame like he was a disembodied slab of meat. It felt so good to have his eyes on him like that, with that expression on his face, that Ouma had to curl his fingers into the disheveled, undone shirt the other was wearing. Lips slightly parted, eyes lidded from his downward roaming, the same red blush trailing the length of his neck. It made Ouma lift his hips and wiggle them down without thinking.

“I-I bought it for you-“ Ouma felt his breath leave him when he registered Saihara’s response directly on his skin, his dick jumping at the movement and the words. “I mean, I bought it to wear for you… Is it okay…?”

He couldn’t be honest and say he stole it, Saihara would hate him, so he hoped that answer sufficed. It seemed it did more than that, the other’s toes curling into the bed and pushing his hips upward on uncontrollable instinct. Ouma closed one of his eyes and let out a small ‘mmph-!’ when he was jostled at the movement, jarred upward as his erection pressed flush against his ass. It felt so dirty to have it rubbing against him like that.

“It looks-“ Saihara had forgotten about the restraints, so when he moved to pull his arms down to rip the buttons open on the cardigan and reveal all of Ouma’s pale skin to his sharp nails, his whole body was shocked with pain. The plastic cut into his wrists and made his fingers spasm, begging to be released from their cramped and stinging position. It took everything in him to not let out a yelp.

Ouma didn’t even notice.

He took the wiggling of his pinned body as another sign of his arousal and sucked a breath in through his wet lips. Spreading his fingers wide, he smoothed out the patch of his shirt he had been clutching onto, taking a moment to pat down the wrinkles to make sure it wasn’t ruined. Eyes still aimed low, he rolled his hips, and the skin pressed up against him rolled too.

“A-Ah-“ Saihara’s noise was involuntary, caught fully off-guard by the movement. Torn between the pain in his arms, and the ache below, he began to wriggle his legs for a different reason.

“D-Does it feel good?” Ouma rocked his hips again, then a third time, then kept up his pace. Slow and teasing, the plush of his ass pulled repeated noises out of Saihara’s throat as his body begged for something stronger. He tugged against the restraints on purpose, each time reminded of his trapped position and the searing ripping of his skin. Of course, that turned him on.

It hurt so much more than when he had been tied up by Momota. Momota had experience doing it before even if he didn’t care, but Ouma didn’t, so he had no idea. He had made it so tight he had bent his wrists out of place, and used material that was digging into his flesh anytime he moved the smallest centimeter. Burning, burning over the weak skin across his bony wrists, until it felt like they were being sawed off.

“L-Look-“ The concentrated boy lifted his head, and his body up, balancing completely on his trembling thighs now. Saihara’s erection sat directly between his legs, but he wasn’t focusing on that. Instead, he was zeroed in on Ouma’s fingers that grabbed onto the front of his short skirt.

Lifting the skirt slowly, Ouma revealed the panties he was wearing underneath, his own hardness peeking out from them as they glistened with various stains. Saihara physically convulsed, again tearing at his restraints, desperate to reach out and touch. Dig his fingers into Ouma’s thin waist, force him down on his cock, bite into the panties and rip them off of his body.

But he couldn’t do anything, only stare with a panting mouth as Ouma pulled his eyebrows together.

“I want you to look at it, Saihara-kun.”

He couldn’t _do_ anything else, not that he wanted to. Being restrained like this, teased until he was leaking out across his own stomach wasn’t a bad thing at all. He _loved_ it.

‘ _Ouma-kun, Ouma-kun, please-‘_ His brain was throbbing hot, tugging at the ties again to feel how they sliced into him.

Lowering himself, Ouma pressed their erections flush together, turning the panties sticky with their mixed precum. He let out a small whine, eyes focused intently on the way they rubbed up against each other, albeit the fabric separating them. It was intoxicating to see Saihara’s stomach twitch each time he felt his own body jump, every movement he made blending their pleasure into a shared one.

Humping into Saihara, he kept his skirt lifted in one hand, and used the other to balance himself as he leant forward again. Grinding down, he felt every muscle in his hips twitching each time he rut forward, begging him to go further, even though he physically couldn’t. Just one more time, just rub against him one more time, his body was urging him.

“They’re touching- hah, O-Our…” Ouma was panting as he moved, still focused downward, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of their dicks pressed against each other. When he finally looked up, he saw Saihara’s eyes rolled back in their sockets, his chest twitching. When his pupils became visible again, they were almost entirely black, focusing on Ouma and wavering in size.

“S-Saihara-kun…?”

“Please, Ouma-kun, please,” the other looked blown away, losing his tenuous control on the situation as his hands fisted into the fabric he was holding. “Please fuck me.”

“H-Hah!” Ouma _drooled_ , the spit that had been building in his mouth running out and dripping onto the shirt below him. It was staining, but he could barely care, he would just promise to wash it later. He promised, so when the string got smaller and severed, he merely pulled back to sit up without mentioning it.

“Ou-ma-“ The movement shook Saihara enough he thrashed around in his restraints again, almost making the boy straddling him feel bad. Was he being mean? He hadn’t even realized… He was just doing what he wanted to, he hadn’t been thinking about how Saihara felt at all… He could convince himself mentally he had done all of this for Saihara, the petty crimes, the outfit, the lying, but when it came to the full truth, he had done it for himself. That was why he was tied up now, when all Ouma wanted was for his hands to be all over him.

Well, he had to! How else was he going to make sure they were together forever if he didn’t follow his own plan? In the end, it was all for the _both_ of them, to make sure they would be together forever. Wasn’t that the best excuse he could ever have?

When they were together forever, just the two of them, that would be true happiness. He had to focus on that.

But, he still did feel bad, so he lifted his hips up again this time and hovered over him on all fours. Reaching one hand back, he peeled the panties off of his body, practically stuck there from the viscous liquid covering them. Their mix, making his cock throb when it was exposed at the thought.

Underwear down on one of his ankles now, he sat back up again, acutely aware of Saihara’s eyes following him like a starved predator. Even like this, Ouma still felt like he was being a tool, serving a purpose, and he absolutely loved it.

Positioning himself over Saihara’s erection, he held onto it in one hand, and kept his skirt lifted with the other. So the other boy could see everything, he kept a full view open, despite his burning face.

“I-I’m putting it in then,” he announced, and the other nodded his head as if he had never agreed with something more in his life.

“Please, let me feel inside, please Ouma-kun,” Saihara sort of felt like he was unraveling, the more he spoke, the more wanted to tumble out of his mouth. “I’ll do anything, anything.”

The tip was already slipping in when he began to say that, and Ouma let out a wild moan at the words. He had permission, he really had permission?

 _‘Does he know, then? He knows what I’m going to do…?’_ Ouma borderline screamed in pleasure as it fit all the way inside of him, spreading him apart as the perverted, untrue realization invaded his sick mind. _‘Then he’s okay with it, if I really…? He wants to be together forever-‘_

Ouma’s mind went white at the thought, whole body convulsing as he slammed his eyes shut to pulse around the thickness inside of him. He hadn’t ever been on top of Saihara like this before, moving himself, and it felt uncontrolled compared to the times he had been pinned beneath him before.

“Inside-!” Ouma shook violently as his body reacted to how deep he was being spread. Saihara had gone almost dumbly silent, body pulling away from what was keeping him secured in place, but also in so much pain it shifted toward it. He was just shaking, eyes fully white as Ouma melted around him and made him a mess.

“Ah-Hah, it’s so hot inside- Ouma-kun, I love it.” The words made Ouma shiver, letting out a cry as he tightened around him in an uncontrolled response. Doubling forward, he caught himself on his arms, but the movement tore him open inside and made him writhe on his supports.

“I got ready for you… I-I made sure it was ready for…” He tried to explain, but his words were falling only under his tongue as it was thick in his mouth. Even though he had prepared himself, on Saihara’s bed, legs spread and skirt riding up his hips, he still felt how he had before. Torn apart, ripped open, like the boy beneath him was spreading himself so far deep inside he would pierce his heart. Maybe he was exaggerating, it really didn’t hurt so bad. But he wanted it to hurt. He desperately wanted it to.

“It feels so good.” Saihara was wiggling around and practically kicking his legs so hard the bed was shaking against the wall, the metal and wood rubbing loudly. It was weird, it was so weird to see Saihara like that. Ouma hadn’t seen him last time he had touched him, his face at least… He was entranced.

He had seen him desperate before. But that didn’t matter, because it wasn’t his hands making him feel that way. It was something foul that had made him that way, something rotten, something that infected them and was in their bed. Stinking, vile, it made Ouma stop moving and his face go stone cold. If Saihara’s eyes had been open he would have seen the form hovering over him go rigid. Maybe his blood would have frozen in fear as all positive emotions drained from Ouma’s face and he was left with a wild, vibrating sneer.

In a flash, he had bent over the side of the bed, and ripped himself back upward, not making a single noise despite the churning inside of him.

“Ou-“

“Saihara-kun-“ Ouma was back upward with something in his hand, massive and glinting in the heavy light of his room. The meat cleaver from his kitchen, black handle shaking in the boy’s tiny palms. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Saihara tensed up, the muscles coiling in his body as his eyes flashed between the blade and Ouma’s dead-serious face with a mixture of emotion. Disbelief, primarily, but also something else. Genuine curiosity?

“Wh-Why are you- I mean, what are you… Um,” Saihara couldn’t look away from the knife once his eyes were focused back on it, swallowing so hard the dent in his neck bobbed up and down visibly.

Ouma shook his head, hair flying wildly around his face in a blurry mess that masked whatever was consuming him at hearing Saihara sound so trapped. It hurt so much more than he thought it would, to see his eyes go wide and feel his body instinctively pull away, even if it returned immediately. This was the worst part, he hated this, but it needed to happen. Just like everything else, it was going to happen eventually.

“Why did you have to hang out with Mo- _him_ today? Why?” Ouma was still shaking his head, but less violently now, and Saihara could make out his cheeks trembling as he spoke. His whole body was vibrating, shaking in intervals that almost made the other think he would drop the dangerous object directly on his stomach at any time.

He swallowed again at the thought.

“W-Why couldn’t we have hung out? What do you want me to do?” He stopped his small movements to go still, his shoulders convulsing under the black cardigan. Lifting his head, Saihara saw tears had consumed his enormous eyes, the deep purple dominating his gaze and trapping it there for his own. “I’ll do anything, so tell me what you want me to do!”

His speech was oddly fragmented for someone that spoke as purposefully as he usually did. Hesitant, sure, but always well thought out, nothing like his spit filled rantings that made no cohesive sense he was blanketing Saihara with now. How was he supposed to even respond to what he was saying?

“Saihara-kun, I’d d-do anything for you, anything. I mean that, I mean it,” he leant forward as he spoke, still gripping the cleaver with two hands to make sure it didn’t drop from his grip. “You don’t need anyone else, because I’d do anything!”

Saihara tried to interrupt, unsure what he would even say, unsure what he was even feeling, but was promptly overwhelmed.

“Ouma-kun-“

“It’s not your fault, I know it isn’t your fault,” Ouma shook his head, the knife in his hands trembling with the unsteady grip. The pinned boy couldn’t stop watching the knife, the way it shook and gleamed, casting an odd shadow over his own body he could just make out. Just barely, but he felt his heart leap.

“You can’t help it that other things catch your attention, it makes sense, right? Other things are fun, other people… They’re better than me. No matter how much I change I can’t be as good as everything else,” Ouma inhaled brokenly, his lower lip sucking between his teeth as he spoke, “So I’m not mad at you, I promise. I’m mad at everyone else.

So, I’ll kill everyone else, and I’ll destroy everything you don’t need to be happy.”

He tightened his fingers around the handle of the knife and felt some strength enter him. A conviction flowed from the object and into his body, his arm lowering steadily until the blade was pressed up directly against the measly fabric covering Saihara’s shoulder blade. He still couldn’t stop watching that blade.

‘ _Kill… everyone else?’_ Saihara had a hard time believing it was Ouma saying this. Ouma, who put up with mountains of pain on a daily basis without so much as a peep (one not positive, at least). Ouma with arms the size of a wilting tree branch and the bodyweight of a wet cat. Ouma that smiled with a weak upturn of his lips and a little giggle when Saihara actually put his life in danger. Ouma was… a masochist, a victim, a poseable doll, not a murderer.

Or, at least he had thought so.

In the game of love, all bets were off, all truths were shown.

Wait, love? He had considered the word love for the first time in his life, and it made his stomach hurt. Ouma was crushing his legs after having fully rested his weight down, and they felt like they were going numb. His whole body physically revolted at the single syllable, but once he thought it, he couldn’t get it out of his brain. Love, love reflected in the light the cleaver spread over his shoulder, and he registered now that the blade was aimed at _him_. Wasn’t it supposed to be in the opposite direction?

“B-But, I know how weak I am. I probably sound stupid, but I have a plan… That’s why… I’m sorry, Saihara-kun.”

“What do you mean-?” Saihara hadn’t objected once this entire time, but it didn’t particularly matter, he was just interested in the way the knife was dully nudging into him. Focused on that now, on the slice it could make with just one single movement, the concept he had wrestled with only moments before was gone. Replaced with his quickening heartbeat, excitement at the knife pressing into his skin. Simple, simple boy.

“I have to hurt you for a little bit, to make sure everything goes okay. I can’t get rid of everyone all at once, so I need to keep you safe and make sure no one else tries to get in the way…” Ouma’s eyes flickered up and there was nothing inside of them aside from pure insanity. “I won’t kill you though, I’d never do that! I’m just gonna… cut your arms and legs off, so you can’t go anywhere. I-Is that okay?”

Was it okay?

What did Saihara think about any of this?

Well, he thought it was okay. He thought it sounded great, actually, and his body lifted up slightly from the bed as he considered it. Closer to the blade, the more it pushed into his skin the harder he began to breathe. It wasn’t cutting into him whatsoever, and that was what was making him mad. If Ouma was going to do it, he wanted him to hurry up and do it, do it, do it, do it-

“D-Don’t move!” Ouma pressed his weight down when the hips below him began to lift, pinning him to the bed and wiggling in an attempt to keep him there. All he was succeeding in doing was messing Saihara up as he squeezed around him inside, his body writhing as he ground his hips upward. Ouma shoved the knife down firmer in some sort of warning, or struggle to keep him still, but it did nothing other than make Saihara pant loudly.

“You have to- Saihara-kun, stop moving… I-I can’t do it when you’re… I promise I won’t make it hurt too much, I promise, so stop-“ The back and forth rocking of Ouma on top of him was burning Saihara’s body up, his skin on fire as he tugged at the restraints even harder this time. He spasmed uncontrollably as it cut into him until a wetness pooled around his wrists and began to drip down, undeniably blood that trailed down in a thick line. Convulsing in response, he rubbed against the blade too deeply and heard his shirt unravel with a rip. Metal against flesh.

“Stop!” Ouma screeched and the cleaver left his lightly nicked shoulder in a blur. Then it was pressed up against his neck, the sharp edge digging directly into his jugular.

Saihara inhaled violently as it shoved into his throbbing vein, Ouma’s eyes full of wild determination hovering over him enough to make his body lose control.

“Uuu-!” Head thrown backward, he twitched as if he were in a fit before going completely still, eyes rolled back in his head. His body lifted upward, into the blade, and deeper into Ouma, making the other’s eyes go wide.

“S-Saihara-“ The armed boy gasped as Saihara slammed his hips upward, jarring him and managing to overwhelm his small amount of weight to grind into him. The broken sound Saihara made leaked into the air and Ouma’s mouth fell open in surprise, the pulsing inside of him making it hang open in disbelief.

‘ _This has to be a lie, right…? Did he really…?’_

“S-Saihara-kun, did you… Did you just c-cum…?” Ouma was breathing heavily, but not as heavily as the other was, his eyes still lifted upward but not fully back in their sockets anymore. He was spasming in intervals, small moans coming each time he panted, before eventually disappearing as it slowed. There was a squish as Ouma shifted, pulling the weapon back and barely registering it was in his hands anymore. That was dangerous, he could have dropped it at any moment because of the numbness in his fingers, but it dangled from his weak grip in a precarious sway.

Without answering, another wrack of his body made Saihara pull against the restraints, and Ouma’s eyes flashed up to them. Seeing a few signs of blood welling up underneath them, he panicked and scrambled forward, cleaver in hand.

He really had never been prepared to see Saihara’s blood.

“I-I’m sorry! Are you okay? I’m so sorry,” Ouma’s hands were shaking in some unspeakable mix of emotion, bringing the sharp blade to the plastic slicing into his pure, pale skin. Stupid Ouma, stupid Ouma, he was so stupid, he had never meant to hurt him. He was so dumb, he didn’t know it would make him bleed like that, he didn’t know, he just wanted to- He needed to get them off, but it was tricky with the position.

After a few sawing movements, the plastic was easily severed, and Saihara’s wet hands went tumbling to the bed. Laying next to his head like limp logs, the air stung his exposed skin enough to make him convulse again.

“Ah-“

“Saihara-kun, please, are you okay? I’m so sorry, let me- I have to go get something, the bleeding is-“

The shift in tone was almost phenomenal, how he had gone from plotting an extreme act of violence to his typical, apologetic mess just at the sight of some blood. He couldn’t do it, he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t handle seeing Saihara’s blood, he never wanted to. If it had been anyone else in the world, he wouldn’t have cared. But he knew he never wanted to see Saihara’s blood now.

No matter how much he loved him, and even if it would help them be together all alone forever, Ouma just knew he could never hurt Saihara. He could never see his blood.

That was the glaring difference between them, in the end. Because Saihara could see Ouma’s blood all he wanted with a gleeful heart, and a larger love each time.

“No,” Saihara’s voice was breathy as his hands darted out once Ouma began to remove himself. His hands were trembling, but his grip was unyielding when they pressed into Ouma’s hips, slamming him back down and causing the other to squeak loudly. “Don’t leave.”

“But I-“

“Ouma-kun,” He dug his fingers into the meat of his sides, testing their strength as he managed to muster more until his fingernails were denting in. “You can’t leave me.”

Ouma’s eyebrows furrowed together at the words in conjunction with the harsh digging near his hipbones. On one hand, it made him so happy to hear that, so happy his head was throbbing. But on the other, he really did need to go, he needed to fix what he had caused and make sure Saihara wasn’t hurt… He needed to atone for what he had done in a flurry of emotion.

“But-“ He said it again, and Saihara had had enough.

Having regained control of his body, he pressed his palms into the scratchy fabric on Ouma’s chest and shoved him, hard. Following after him, managing to stay connected, the small boy was sent to his back with an overwhelmed squeal, bouncing against the mattress as his eyes clamped shut.

Legs spread in the air, forced there by Saihara between his thighs, he really felt split apart this time. The thong hung from his skinny ankle and tickled his skin until it stilled from swaying back and forth.

He hadn’t cum yet.

“Lick it,” Saihara said, and that made Ouma open his eyes with a few creaking blinks. Balancing on one hand, he lifted his slightly crusty wrist into the air to clarify for the clearly overwhelmed boy, watching his eyes go to their full wideness, and even further at the sight.

“Lick it up and I’ll forgive you.”

Ouma began to shake his head, arms curled in front of him as if he were trying to pull away from the concept as much as he could. “I can’t do that, n-no, I can’t-“

“Why not?” Saihara couldn’t understand what the issue was, he had done it to Ouma, so why couldn’t he do the same? Shoving the wrist into his face, his hand almost blocked out the sight of Ouma squeezing his eyes shut again with a small squeak.

“Lick it, go ahead and lick it.” He pressed his wrist down even more until the raw skin was flat against his wet lips. The stinging sensation made him moan slightly, and he began to rub it all over his closed mouth, Ouma letting out a trapped sound behind his lips, refusing to open them. Saihara began to giggle excitedly at the feeling of Ouma’s mouth wriggling underneath him, the blood rubbing off all over his face and turning his chin a dark red. “Lick all of my blood.”

Reluctantly, Ouma opened one of his eyes and saw Saihara grinning over him, pressing him forward with his enthused eyes. With ridiculous slowness, he parted his lips and opened his mouth, his tongue sliding out until only the tip was showing.

Given an inch and taking a mile, the dissatisfied boy pushed further and pressed his wrist flat against his tongue, shoving his mouth open without his consent. Ouma let out a strangled noise as his slimy tongue touched the exposed flesh on Saihara’s wrist, the wound he had caused himself, and the dried blood flaked off into his mouth. He began to cough, unable to handle when fresh blood started to drip into his throat, the taste of something so foreign making his tongue retract.

He had tasted blood before, but only his own, from a busted lip or a bit tongue or other, even worse options; never someone else’s. Never Saihara’s, never had he wanted to hurt him until his blood was dripping all over his teeth and into his stomach. He couldn’t imagine it, but as his tongue reached back out when Saihara urged him some more, he tried to register what it all meant.

Dragging his bumpy skin all over the salty amalgamations of Saihara’s blood, he began to realize what exactly was happening. He was consuming him, he was literally eating him. Saihara was entering him and mixing with him. They were becoming one person, one person inside of Ouma.

He would never leave him, because he would always be inside of him. They had both swallowed the proof of their life, and they were bound together by that. Trapped inside of each other forever.

Ouma’s arms, once weak in reluctance on his chest, reached out and he wrapped his hands around Saihara’s forearms, pulling him closer. Tilting his head, Ouma took all of what he could of Saihara’s wrist into his mouth and rubbed his tongue all over it. Drool was pooling up behind his bottom lip until it finally spilled over and ran down Saihara’s skin, dripping onto his disheveled cosplay.

“Ah, ha-ah, does it taste good, Ouma-kun?” A smile had broken out onto Saihara’s face when Ouma tugged him closer, the feeling of his teeth clawing against his tortured skin making him pant. The focused boy nodded with his eyes closed as he wrangled his tongue around Saihara’s wrist in a thousand different patterns, doing everything he could to drink as much of him as he could.

He was so glad Ouma understood now, why it was so enthralling… Even if they did it for different reasons, all that mattered was that he liked it too.

Pulling back, desperately in need of air, Ouma coughed as his chest spasmed beneath Saihara. His lips were as red and glossy as a cherry, and his tongue matched, looking like a sweet doll when he turned his eyes up to Saihara as he licked at the stains across his face. Framed perfectly with his pigtails and the skirt that lifted to show his still fully hard erection, Saihara just… lost it.

Because he knew, in the end, it was all a lie.

He still couldn’t forgive him. Not knowing what he knew now.

“…So it’s true, then?”

“H-Huh?” Ouma was out of it, but not enough to comprehend those words as being relevant in any way, shape, or form. Reaching a hand up to wipe at his mouth, it pulled away with a distinct, brownish smear, making Saihara frown and he wasn’t sure why.

“You did this to me…” Saihara reminded, sitting back up and causing a throb to pulse through Ouma’s body unintentionally.  “The fact you did this to me… It doesn’t make me happy.

It makes me feel sick.”

Pulling himself out of Ouma with one quick movement, the other boy cried out in a mix of pain and emptiness. Put it back in, he wanted it back in, but Saihara wasn’t going to let him have it. There was something offended on his face, and it made Ouma’s heart drop fifty stories through the floor, into the deepest pit in the ground.

“Wh-What did I- I mean, I’m sorry, I never should have hurt you, I never should have said I would I… I promise I never would, I was just so…” Tears were coming, and the taste in his mouth was no longer pleasant. He just felt like he was going to throw up if Saihara didn’t put it back inside of him. “Th-There’s no excuse, I’m just so sorry, please believe me…”

“How can you just say those things to me?” Saihara was actually getting mad. What at first had been something he completely forgot about and paid no attention to, was resurfacing into something much larger. Why did Ouma have to do this, do it like all of this? Do it exactly like he had before?

“How can you say those things when I’m not really special?”

Ouma’s whole face twisted into something indescribable, like he felt more disgusted, more ready to leave the Earth in that second than ever before. It was incomprehensible that that would be true, it was absolutely revolting of a thought. Saihara was more than special, Saihara was everything.

“You’re the first person I’ve ever done those things to, and you made it seem like it was the same… But all those things earlier are just lines you’ve known for a while now, right?”

“Th-That’s not true…! Saihara-kun you really are my first-“

“You’re a liar.”

Grabbing firmly onto his waist, Saihara flipped him without any concern for his body. Ouma landed on his stomach with a small ‘oof’, and immediately curled his fingers into the bed to push himself up. He was stopped before he could even attempt it, Saihara pressing a hand harshly to the back of his head and grinding the side of his face into the now uncomfortable comforter.

“S-Saihara-kun, what is- What did I do? I’m sorry, I’m sorry-“ The serial apologizing was slipping out, but he wasn’t sure what else to do at this point. He had no idea what he was talking about, what was making him suddenly so angry after they had just been doing something so amazing…

He thought he had done a good job, he thought he had made him happy.

“I’m sorry, please don’t be mad at me, please, I’m sorry for what I did to hurt you, I’m sorry,” Ouma was breathing violently as he spoke, each inhale sounding like a pained wheeze as he gripped at the fabric beneath him. He wanted to see his face, he wanted to touch it and transfer his thoughts to him, to prove how sorry he really was. Whatever he did, even if it wasn’t a real thing, he was sorry for it, he truly was.

Saihara began to rub himself against Ouma’s exposed ass, the slippery mess leftover from the lube and cum inside spreading around and making the pinned boy twitch. He dug his fingers harder into the softness of his hair and continued to rut against him, watching intently the way the skirt lifted up and his body wiggled against him.

“I’m so-orry-“ It wasn’t clear if Ouma was apologizing for what he had been before, or for the way his hips moved on their own and rubbed up against him. Even though Saihara was upset, he was still being selfish, but he couldn’t help how good it felt.

Why did it always end up like this when it was just the two of them? Why did Ouma always have to do this? Why did he have to have so many skeletons in what Saihara always assumed was a tiny closet?

Why did he always hide things? Why did he always _lie_?

He pulled his hands away from Ouma in a fit, and the other panted heavily as he scrambled against the sheets.

“…I heard something interesting, Ouma-kun.” When Saihara spoke, Ouma craned his neck to look over his shoulder, the bed he was face down on creaking as it tugged against his skin. Before he could move his eyes up fully to focus on his face, he was only able to see him begin to tug his tie off, the one that had sat partially undone on his neck, his pale fingers clenched cruelly around the silk fabric.

“From the girl that sent me that video of you, she told me something else the other day. I wasn’t really sure what to think,” as he spoke, Ouma found himself unable to even tear his eyes from the way he ruthlessly gripped the tie, the poor tie. What had it done to deserve such harsh treatment? It was terrifying how he was clawing at it. Before he could comprehend why he was even feeling bad for an inanimate object, he felt the roots of his hair burn with pain as they were tugged back, and his head was wrenched from its resting position with no warning. That, combined with the way Saihara’s cock was shoved back inside of him without warning, forced a warbled scream out that he was unfortunately aware the entire neighborhood heard.

“I’m not the first person you’ve tried to do this to, am I?”

Saihara’s voice was in his ear, the heat in his breathy question making Ouma quiver as his mouth hung open in part-shock, part-total-arousal. It hurt so badly, but he had been stuck on the edge longer than he ever had been before, that the simple act of the exhales was enough to make him whimper through the searing ache.

The tie slipped around his neck.

Ouma made the wrong move and he gasped, he breathed at the wrong time and suddenly it was gone. He hadn’t expected Saihara to pull back so soon, or to grab onto the end of the tie as he tightened it until it sat directly against his Adam’s apple and left him unable to inhale anymore. He had only the measly amount of air he managed to collect caught in his throat, and the sinking realization he would not get anymore, when Saihara pulled his face back and returned to being upright.

“Hah- She told me the craziest story,” he pulled out then forced himself back inside while he told his tale, using the tie he was strangling Ouma with as a pair of reins to force him backward each time he slammed forward. The smaller boy’s body jarred and protested deeply within as he was torn apart without warning, unprepared for the way his spine convulsed when it arched in response. But he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t scream, he couldn’t say it felt good, he was left with his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he searched desperately for air to cling to.

Nothing entered his lungs, and the hold went tighter as Saihara began to fuck into him, the harsh movements causing his words to bounce with each movement.

“In middle school, ah, there was a boy you liked, right? You liked him- You liked him the way you like me,” Saihara gasped each time he thrusted, filling the uncharacteristic silence below him with his own pants. “I heard about what you did, Ouma-kun. H-Heh, you… You really broke into his room and got caught.”

Ouma’s already watery eyes let loose at the bitter reminder of his unwanted past, hearing yet another thing he had never, ever wanted Saihara to know spill from his favorite lips. It hurt, it hurt so much, he could feel the veins in his head pounding so much they were audible in his head, like every part of his body was connected by the singular heartbeat that reverberated from the portion of his neck where he lost all control. All it wanted was air, it _needed_ air, or he was seriously going to die, but he didn’t even want that. He wanted to explain, to tell the truth, but it was caught off by the striped tie choking him as his skin went vividly red.

That guy, all the guys before… All that stalking wasn’t the same! Saihara meant more, he was something so much bigger than they ever were. In that guy’s room, all Ouma had wanted was a single piece of clothing, anything would do, he was just so lonely… but it was more than that with Saihara. It was different, he _needed_ him, not just something simple as want. It was a necessity.

Ouma still remembered the bowing and the apologizing to the family, the day everyone turned his face from him in school. He remembered the police officers, too, and the hands that landed on him later that night. He remembered being called an embarrassment, being called nothing but trouble, he remembered refining his stalking skills after that point, so it would never happen again.

But it was happening again, he was going to lose everything.

Saihara was fucking him ruthlessly, never stopping as he moved faster and faster until his own legs began to burn. He couldn’t stop, he couldn’t give up until he marked Ouma as much as he could, since it _clearly_ didn’t work last time. He wouldn’t stop until he got the truth out of him for once, until he could truly make Ouma his only.

“Were you planning on cutting him up like you said you were going to do to me? Haah, or were you just messing around and wanted to fuck him, like you did with me?” Laughing, he ripped the tie back more, a cracking, choking noise emitting from the voiceless boy before him. “But you reee-ally fucked up and got caught. I don’t know how you got my mom out of the house, but you thought it would work this time… You didn’t think I would find out…”

Saihara couldn’t see Ouma’s face, so he couldn’t fully see the purple that coated his complexion or the lax tongue that drooped from his mouth as if he were dead. He didn’t particularly care if he died, anyway, that wasn’t why he would stop in the first place. If Ouma died from this, he would just kill himself after, and that would be it. He didn’t particularly care if he lived either, so it didn’t matter.

He only stopped because he wanted to hear what he had to say for himself.

“Ha-ah, haah, Sh-“ Ouma wretched forward when he found he was able to speak again, the air suddenly unwelcome in his lungs as it burnt into the tubes with unfamiliar agony. His whole body cramped and he began coughing, thick, globular drool sliding from his now wet tongue and coating the lower portion of his face.

That story was too long to tell Saihara, not when his insides were on fire and his mouth was barely able to pull out a weak wheeze. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t defend himself when there was nothing to defend and there was no power behind his words. Just a weak, selfish, desire filling his whole body into a convulsing, writhing mess.

“Sa-aihara-kun, I’m s-sorry, shorry, please don’t th-“

“So it’s true… Aha, I just thought it was another bad rumor…” Something about Saihara’s voice sounded genuinely hurt, and before Ouma could turn his head to look and see if it was genuine, he felt his body almost lifted off the bed as Saihara began choking him again.

“Just like the video, I thought it was all some sort of sick joke… I thought everyone hated you because they were bad people. I thought you were honest with me, Ouma-kun. But you’re always hiding things, always sneaking around like I won’t find out…”

He wasn’t fucking him now, instead just enjoying the way Ouma was squirming around on his cock. His hands had lifted off the bed, entirely reliant on the tie strangling him, and they were clawing at the fabric fruitlessly. But not because he wanted him to stop choking him, he just wanted to talk.

“I’m always thinking about you Ouma-kun, I’m always thinking about being happy with you, and I don’t know why,” while Saihara mused, Ouma wretched beneath him, the roar in his ears almost blocking out the words completely. “I’ve never liked anyone like I’ve liked you, I’ve never touched anyone like that until I met you… And you… And you aren’t the same.”

“Wr-ong-“ A strangled mess of syllables managed to escape Ouma, and he felt like his eyes were going to pop out of his strained skull when he tried again. “Y-You’re wro-ng.”

Letting go of the tie, Saihara let Ouma collapse fully onto the bed, his ass lifted in the air but his entire upper-half flat. His eyes were crossed as he sucked in some disgustingly wet breaths of air, the entire room filled with only his pitiful, half-dead breathing.

But still, he tried to talk.

“Sa-Saihara-kun is the only- You’re th-the only pe-erson I’ve ever wanted to do this with…” He inhaled a particularly painful gasp and began to cough, each shiver making him squeeze around Saihara’s dick. The other couldn’t control the way he pushed forward in response, moaning quietly.

He literally sounded like he was dying. It was so hot.

“Those- The other times, the other guys, urk-“ Ouma’s body wretched and he worked through it, speaking again when his diaphragm wasn’t forcing itself up his throat. “They aren’t anything… They don’t mean a-anything like you do… Saihara-kun, you’re the only, you’re th-only one…that…”

He began to sob, his head feeling like a handful of wet cotton balls that wouldn’t let him speak. He hated it, he had ruined everything again. Just like last time Saihara had found out something unpleasant about him, he had almost lost him then. It was the same mistakes over and over, making Saihara not feel important because he thought other people mattered. Whether it was letting others touch him, or hurt him, or having had a crush on someone else before, he was always spitting in the face of Saihara’s care for him. He just seemed so fake, unraveling all of the words and things he had done to prove just how much he loved him.

If he hadn’t been so selfish, if he could just prove that no one else really mattered to him. That they never did, they never have, and they never will, if he could show him that.

If he could just talk instead of crying.

“Haah-“ Saihara let out a wet moan and wrapped the tie around his hand again. Ouma clenched his whole body in preparation to lose all control over himself again, but it didn’t come. Instead, the dick inside of him pulled out slowly, almost sweetly so, and slipped back in just as soft. He whimpered as it happened again, and dug his fingers into the sheets as hard as he could, every muscle in his arms quivering.

“Ouma-kun, Ouma-kun,” Saihara said his name every time he fucked him, making Ouma cry out at the sound. His name leaving those lips between every soft pant was making his body lose its grip on reality, whiplashing between a shoddy grasp on consciousness and the heaviness in his head. He felt like he was really going to die, or slip off somewhere sweeter. Somewhere lost in the softness of his head, where he felt only Saihara deep inside of him, spreading around the cum he had already put inside him before.

“Ouma-kun, I can’t believe you.” Jerked back coldly into reality, Ouma felt his neck wrench backward again, lifting up off the bed as he was violently strangled.

_‘Again?! I’ll really die, please believe me, please believe me, I only have you please, please don’t abandon me. Please don’t let me die, not like this. Please don’t let me die when you think this. I want you to kill me, I want to die, but only when you know I love-‘_

“I ca-can’t believe you, because I love you, Ouma-kun.” Saihara couldn’t see the other’s face, but he saw the way his body flinched and writhed, and felt how he clenched around him with an infectious sweetness. And, he was embarrassed so… It was better that way.

But feeling the way Ouma responded, and how the words sounded on his lips, Saihara found he wasn’t embarrassed anymore. He just couldn’t stop.

“I love you, I love you, I love you.” It felt like speaking the truth for the first time in his life, and he was addicted. Why had he been so hesitant before? His stomach had hurt just thinking of it, but now he realized why. It was like vomiting, once you did it, you felt a million times better. So, he vomited the words over and over in a string that never ended.

He had been alone for so long, his entire life he had been alone. He had held it all inside of him, every positive emotion he had never gotten to experience, and being with Ouma, he got to experience them all. Being appreciated, being admired, thinking maybe there was something about him that was worthy for once. Because if Ouma liked him, and Ouma was such an interesting and… usually good person, then it had to mean something, right? Ouma had given him the only, true positive experience he had ever had with another human being in his life… Outside of his interests, Ouma was the only thing that had ever made him happy.

He didn’t really care about his family, or anyone else, or anything else, other than Ouma.

And Ouma hadn’t ever said it back.

“I love you this much, and you still hide things from me, you still promise me things like me being the only one when I’m not, how can I be special if you’ve loved someone else before…?” Saihara didn’t exactly feel… positive, though. It felt more like a release, a release of so much all he could do was move his hips faster and choke harder. “I, ah, I love you like this and you won’t even say it back-“

“Lo-ove you,” Ouma spoke brokenly, but he forced it out of his throat, dripping drool onto the bed in an embarrassing glob. He still pushed on, he had to push on, he couldn’t stand the thought of not responding, of letting Saihara just think things like that…!

“L-Love you, Sai- I loo-ove-“ It was no use, he wanted to say it so badly, but he simply couldn’t without the ability to even breathe. Eyes going wide at the obvious syllables, Saihara let him go, the boy falling to the bed again with a pathetic thud.

He began weeping immediately, coughing and choking on his spit and convulsing so hard he shook the bed. Saihara’s heart was pounding in his head, so aroused at the sight, but also replaying what he had heard in his head just a few moments before. As if he couldn’t believe it. He had said it back.

Love… Ouma couldn’t believe it either. He had assumed he would be the first to say it, because he had loved Saihara since before he talked to him. That was just the type of person he was, and he couldn’t change that. He had always thought he would accidentally reveal just how sick he was, and Saihara would be disgusted, and run away. Who loves someone they’ve had sex with twice?

But he was wrong, he had been proven wrong again by how wonderful Saihara was. He loved him, he loved him just like Ouma did… He had heard the same feelings he had in his words, why he had wanted so badly to isolate him in the first place…

And he didn’t feel like he had to now, because their blood was combined, and they were in love.

“Pl-lease let me, please let me look…” Ouma attempted to roll over, but only succeeded in twisting his body halfway, looking up at the boy with a face splotched in red and eyes full of thick tears. “I l-love you, please let me…”

Saihara understood what he meant, and eagerly flipped his legs so he was on his back. Ouma had practically lost all feeling in his extremities, nothing other than his head that floated above his body felt like anything, but he could feel the hands on him for some reason. First his calves, then his thighs, then pressing into the bed next to his head.

Saihara wanted to see his face, too. When the tears were blinked away he saw the entire whites of his eyes were bloodshot, and he was having trouble even keeping them from crossing and disappearing off to stare into space. No, he needed his eyes on him.

Putting a hand on his face, he focused them back on him, and ground his hips forward.

“H-Hie! Saihara-kun!” Ouma lifted his ridiculously shaky arms up and wrapped them around his neck, falling limp and hanging there like dead weights. “Love you, I love you, I love yooo-u.”

He couldn’t stop once he heard him say that, it was like his entire body could have exploded at that very second. But he refused to cum like that again, as much as he wanted to, as good as it felt. He wanted to hear more, he wanted to look at Ouma’s fucked up, ridiculous face more. He wanted more proof it was all real, that he was finally not alone.

“I love you, Ouma-kun.” He said very plainly, and the other lost his mind.

“Love you, love you, Saihara-kun, I love you, I love you, pl-ease-“ Ouma could now fully feel low enough he could tell he was being fucked, very hard. His whole body was bouncing, and it was making his words jar too, but he kept blabbering on and on. He could finally talk, he could finally say it and tell him just how much he loved him, he would never stop.

“You’re the only one I’ve ever- The only person I, ah, love, I’ve never felt li-ike this with anyone else, nobody else, nobody else matters to me, Saihara-kun, I love you, I love you.”

His eyes were rolled back in his head again, and he was crying, but it didn’t matter. Saihara thought it was the most erotic thing he had ever seen. He just wanted to kill him so badly, he couldn’t even put words to the feeling he was describing. It was burning up his bloodstream he wanted to kill him so badly, and he meant that in the most loving way possible. Each word he said put him closer and closer to snapping.

Snapping and just killing them both so it would never end.

He definitely understood how Ouma felt.

“Ouma-kun, Ouma-kun!” Leaning forward he wrapped his arms underneath his and clutched his shoulders, using them as supports to fuck him as hard as he could. He pulled down on him each time he thrust forward, and Ouma screamed like he was going to be split in two. He was really deeper inside then he had been before, and it felt like he was going to pierce his organs and spread his blood on the white sheets.

It felt so good, just the thought of it.

“I loo-ove you, Saihara-kun, you’re so deep inside, please, I belong to you, please, haah, I love you, so much I love you.”

He wouldn’t stop squeezing him over and over, as if he was draining his entire life out of him and taking it all for himself. He could have it, just like he had taken Saihara’s blood, he could have his cum, his soul, his whatever he wanted. Ouma was never, ever escaping him at this point.

“I’m cumming, I’m going to cum inside Ouma-kun, a-ah, you’ll never leave me. I’ll never let you leave me.”

“S-! Mine, you’re mine, I-I’m only yours, I only love Saihara-kun, I only want Saihara-kun’s c-cum, hah-!”

Saihara sunk his teeth into the flesh of Ouma’s neck and the other completely blanked out, his cum covering them both when his body went still and simply became a sleeve to be fucked. Saihara kept slamming into him over and over, using his body as the anchor to keep himself in place, melting into how warm and squishy Ouma was inside.

He felt his thigh muscles give out and he came to the thought of fucking Ouma’s unconscious body like it was his own personal doll. Dressed as Enoshima Junko.

He wasn’t unconscious though, just spaced out. It wouldn’t be surprising if he was, though, he had already floated in and out of existence so many times in the past hour he thought he might just let go and die for real. It was a testament to how much he could handle, how much he _wanted_ to be hurt, and just what he was willing to go through to prove his love for Saihara.

Collapsing into each other, the two shook at different paces and for different reasons, their half naked limbs tangling into Ouma’s soaked skirt.

What were they supposed to do now?

 

* * *

 

 

They decided, almost wordlessly, to change and sleep. Saihara let Ouma borrow some clothes, and didn’t bother to ask for them back ever. He knew even if he did he wouldn’t be getting them returned.

Curled up under the covers of Saihara’s bed, Ouma sniffed at the layers of blankets in a completely different light now. A large, red line was forming over his neck where he had been, in truth, almost killed, and his body still hadn’t recovered. It kept twitching at random intervals, and his brain felt like a pile of mush, or a swath of clouds, but he was so happy.

He felt dumb and happy, sniffing at Saihara’s bedsheets when he was right next to him.

Saihara fell asleep first, and while normally Ouma would have taken the opportunity to explore his room, pocket a few things, sniff the more private parts of his wardrobe, he honestly couldn’t. If he stood up, he would have immediately collapsed, even rolling over onto his side made his whole-body revolt in pain.

But he was glad when he did, facing Saihara’s sleeping face now. He was turned up at the ceiling, and when his eyelids twitched in a dream, Ouma couldn’t help but laugh. Pressing his nose up against his warm arm, almost boiling hot, he closed his eyes and let himself be happy for once.

He had done it right, even if it didn’t turn out how he thought, he still secured his happiness. Saihara was his.

Oh, the killing everyone else Saihara didn’t need thing…? That was still on. Just on a brief holiday, though.

 

* * *

 

 

They didn’t really speak… at all, in the morning. Ouma left as early as his eyes opened, and he basically had to sit on Saihara’s chest to wake him up. He felt so bad, the blue haired boy looked legitimately pissed the second he opened his eyes, but as soon as they focused on Ouma, they didn’t look so bad.

He had woken up much earlier, but he spent that time tapping quietly on Saihara’s desktop and through his phone. Deleted: Momota Kaito’s contact information. Obtained: All of his social media, even the few measly scraps, mostly inactive accounts, Ouma didn’t know about.

The house was silent, and the stairs creaked as they creeped down to the front door. There was snoring coming from his parents’ room, but Saihara didn’t seem to care at all. Ouma did though, Ouma cared a lot, so he tied his shoes as quickly as he could while maintaining dead silence.

Saihara followed him to the gate, not sure why since he could have just waited by the door, and almost tripped when Ouma suddenly stopped before it. His back was turned, and by his movements it was obvious he was anxiously fumbling with the strap of his bag.

“U-Um-“ What did he even say? How could he word this… It was what he had been wanting to do all along, but it felt so much more exposed now. Because it wasn’t hidden, it wasn’t a lie, it was just open now, like they had to be. After saying that.

“Could I… take a picture right now?”

“…A what?”

“It’s kind of… Well, it’s a hobby I guess… To take pictures.” Ouma aptly avoided saying of what, but he still felt like an absolute freak. “I-It’s okay if not! I just- I thought… I don’t know…”

“Okay,” was all Saihara said, and Ouma turned around right away in disbelief. He was so straightforward and truthful, it was kind of unnerving. Even if he didn’t get it, it made Ouma happy so… Who was he to say? Photography was kind of a cool hobby, but he would much rather it be in a different setting.

“Is this okay?” He furrowed his eyebrows as he put his hands in his pockets, unsure what exactly he was supposed to do in this situation. Ouma would have cried if his eyes weren’t completely exhausted after everything, so he simply nodded with a feeble smile on his face.

Taking out his polaroid, Ouma positioned it right in front of his eyes, and focused the shot. Saihara in the early, early morning light, standing in front of his house, framed by modest but lovely flowers. A Saihara that was his, that belonged to him. One that he loved.

When he snapped the picture, Saihara stood over his shoulder as it developed.

“Want to take another?” His words spooked Ouma, and the other jumped slightly, looking over his black uniform at the boy behind him.

“W-Why?” He sounded more nervous than he needed to be, but Saihara couldn’t understand it was the memories of what he had wasted the rest of his film on doing that.

“Well, maybe I could take one of you, so I can have one too.” Ouma had a massive hickey on his neck, and the lines of the tie he had used to strangle him were just too prominent to pass up. But when the smaller boy shook his head feverishly, it sent Saihara backward a few steps.

“No, sorry! I just… I don’t have any film left…”

“Well, I’ll just buy some for you. Next time.”

_Next time._

 

* * *

 

 

_New Thread_

_12:03 PM, 5/17/20**_

_One attachment: Download_

_Snapped this of a kid crossdressing in a sex store changing room lol_

_Pretty cute, imo_

Saihara leant into his monitor a bit to read what it said. He hadn’t slept anymore since Ouma had left, per usual, and his eyes were having a rough time with… everything, at this point.

Regardless, he clicked the download button out of his sheer, morbid curiosity, and read the replies.

_> Kid is skinny as hell www_

_> > That’s how I like them _ _ヾ(_ _｡･ω･)_ _ｼ_

 _> Oh… Junko-chan… so cute!_ _♡_

_> > Right?!_

_> >> Do you know who he is…?_

_> >>> Dunno, but he definitely saw me at the end…_

_> Omg you got caught, I think that’s the first time that’s happened_

_> > Yeah… I’ll keep trying harder! He definitely didn’t see who I was www_

When the picture rotated as finished, Saihara opened it with complete apathy. Apathy to the clear story behind all of it, to any sort of emotion involved. He really just didn’t care. He was actually excited, at this point.

When he extracted it, he saw purple hair tied up in pigtails, and a small bra peeking out from behind the cardigan. Body twisted to observe the revealing backend of his skirt, his lips were lax and his eyes looked busy, focusing on the pale expanse of his thighs.

Saihara knew who it was, obviously.

He clicked the right button on his mouse, selected ‘Save image as’, and typed in “Ouma.jpg”

Then he turned off his monitor and decided to get some lunch.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_私だけを見つめる_

_Someone that looks only at me_

_私しか居ないもの_

_A person for whom no one else exists_

  
_二人のどちらが悪人だったのか_

_Which of us was the bad one?_

  
_アナタ分かる？_

_Don't you understand...?_

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> BBBBRBBBBBBSBSS hi
> 
> Sorry again for such a late update... I'm very sorry. I never abandoned this, I just got kicked in the head by finals and mental illness.... I'm very sorry. So many people left such nice comments asking when/if this would return, and I felt so bad leaving everyone on read for a while but what can you do.... I'm still sorry.... God stop the pregame Ouma kinnie is jumping out
> 
> I hope it was okay...! I truly did rewrite it multiple times, from start to finish, and still never felt satisfied. It's easy to write people having sex but harder to write them falling in love... you feel. Especially when they are... uhmmmm like this...?
> 
> The title is another reference to a vocaloid song, 'Love Love Nightmare' by Nantoka-P. It's another song that means a lot to me, and I adore. Very Oumie.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone for sticking around!! I already have a lot of the next chapter written and it is not as expansive/relationship heavy as this because.... Amami Rantaro and Akamatsu Kaede make an appearance!!!! It's p much Amami-centric, but Akamatsu is appearing as well and just know.... Ouma and Saihara are not ready for these two people respectively............
> 
> P.S. thanks to my girlfriend who read the unfinished version of this when she was visiting and just went "Ouma needs to get a job." ugh..... her mind!
> 
> As always, leave some kudos if you enjoyed and a comment please! I respond to every comment I receive, and they give me lots of motivation. Love you all!
> 
> p.p.s. update to all fics - all charas are 18+


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